IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Hello hello!  Happy Monday to you all.  So, today I posed the question “What is friendship?”  I heard many thoughtful responses like Jonah who said, “It is to not be not nice to people.”  Many of the responses included to the words “nice” and “help” which I found interesting.  We are going to continue to explore this idea of friendship and giving until the holiday break and maybe even after so I look forward to seeing their ideas grow about what friendship means.

We started to play this new game called “Burglar!” today during Math Workshop.  The partner team first had to put cards in order 1-20.  Then while one person closed their eyes, a “burglar” came and took three cards away.  Then the other person opened their eyes and had to tell which three cards the “burglar” took.  The children LOVED this game.  I haven’t seen them this engaged in a math game in a while so it was fun to see them doing math in such an engaging way!

We played “Build-a-Man” today (usually referred to Hangman, but I don’t like that name of the game) as a transition activity today, and it was so fun that there were two groups of four that decided to play it the whole time during free choice today!  How fun!

Some friends playing "build-a-man" today!

Geneva and Madeline working together to play "Burglar"

Happy Friday to you all!  Today, Mrs. Thomas, came into our class to do a lesson on friendship.  She sang “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” stopping at various points in the song when the other reindeer were not being very nice, and she talked about that.  Then she discussed with the class ways to be a good friend or ways the reindeer could have been a good friend to Rudolph.  The children came up with a myriad of ways to be a good friend including helping and sharing. Then the children cut out their handprint and glued it on a piece of paper to make a friendship wreath. We talked about how if one hand is gone then our wreath is not complete so we need to all try our hardest to be good friends to each other.

We stopped Math Workshop a little early today to discuss what we could do to remember what being a good friend means, and the children came up with some novel ideas.  Geneva said, “We could make nametags, and we could have the Golden Rule on it.  Then we could always remember it while we are at school.”  Madeline P.  said, “We could make a list and when someone is a good friend we could add that friend’s name on it so we know that they were being a good friend.” We will see what other ways the children decide to show and remember how to be a good friend.

With the holiday season here in full swing, we are going to explore this idea of being a friend and giving more.  I am excited to see how our classroom family grows with us focusing on friendship and giving.

Our Friendship Wreath!

Jamari using his individual word wall notebook to help him spell some words in his writer's workshop book!

We have worked on grouping and doubles the past couple of weeks.  Today some of the friends talked about how if 10 +10=20, then 10×2=20.  Then we talked about 10×3= 3 10’s which is 30.  They caught onto this and so by the end they were multiplying by 10’s up to 100!  They were so excited about what they learned that they wanted to chant it down the hallway on our way outside.

Yesterday we talked a bit about the 5 W’s when it comes to summarizing and comprehension.  Today, I gave each kiddo a viewfinder that had a picture of “Who”, “What”, “When”, “Where”, “Why” so that when they are reading their books during the day they can use that viewfinder to help them summarize and comprehend the books.

We also discussed today “stretching” our words out when we are writing.  We did a demonstration where we took our pretend taffy and stretched out a word.  As we stretched it out we said each sound we heard and then we wrote that sound down until we wrote the word.  During Writer’s Workshop, I noticed some friends doing the “taffy” motion showing me that they were stretching out words to write.

Jamari working on his self-portrait.

Jett reading his Writer's Workshop book

On Monday and Tuesday we talked about “Stopping and thinking” about what we are reading when we are reading books.  Today, we discussed the 5 W’s:  Who, What, When, Where, and Why.  We had some pictures to show each word, and then we discussed a little bit about them.  Then I challenged the children to find those in their books while they were reading.  I was so proud of them for finding those “W” words.  By finding those 5 “W” words, that helps with summarizing and comprehension.  Next week we are going to talk in more detail about each “W” word so that the children have a better understanding of what to look for in their books.

Today was another busy and productive day!  Sophia and Max from Mrs. Clark’s class came in this morning to give us a presentation about their recycling project.  They did such an amazing job presenting their new plans to get our school to recycle.  Each class will have a box in their room to recycle paper, and then each Friday they will take it out and put it in the big recycling bin!  Our kids the rest of the day were asking “Is this for the regular trash can or the recycling box?”  We are pretty excited about being a little greener!

We learned a new pose-the boat- today during yoga, and I cannot tell you how proud I was of the kids!  They worked so hard with their partner to get themselves into the boat position, and then they were trying to really focus their attention so they could stay up for a while!

During Readers Workshop we did some partner reading.  The children partnered up with a friend and took some time to read their books with each other.  We will be doing this once a week at least to work on projecting and reading aloud to a peer.

Jason and Madeline P. doing some partner reading during Reader's Workshop.

Heaven and Selam working together to do the boat pose.

Sophia and Max sharing their recycling project!