IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Tomorrow night at 6 p.m. there will be a meeting for anyone who can volunteer to help with the Carnival! Hope to see many of you there!

In Reader’s Workshop last week the students were identifying the characters, setting, and events in their stories.  This week we have started to talk about problem and solution.  I read When Sophie Gets Really Angry and The Cloud and the students helped me find the problem and solution.  In Word Study we learned a new game, KABOOM.  Friends take turns reading sight words and if they read the word correctly they get to keep the card.  If you get a KABOOM card all of your cards go back into the pile.  The students really enjoyed working together on this new game.  In Math Workshop we discovered that base ten blocks are a really helpful material for our problem solving.  Many students realized that they could solve problems with bigger numbers using the base ten blocks.  We had another powerful closing meeting in Mrs. Clark’s room today.  It’s exciting to see the students building a stronger community between both of our classrooms.  Today, Mr. Ward read a story called Flabbersmashed which was all about friendship.  We gained valuable ideas about friendship during our discussion after the story!

This morning, during word study, we were detectives!  Groups of kids were looking for sounds in words and different word endings in books.  We have been talking a lot about patterns in words and today we challenged the kids to find these things in books.  Our goal is to have them be able to apply their learning to real text and the hunt made an instant connection to this.

This afternoon, we had a special closing meeting with Miss Cegielski’s class.  We talked about friendship and practiced using “bug statements” together.  These are things that we use if someone is upset and needs to talk with their friends.  (ie: The first friend says, “It bugs me when you talk loudly because it makes me feel angry.  I would like you to stop.”  The second student replies with “I understand it bugs you when I talk loudly because it makes you feel angry.  I will stop.”)  We will be using these in our classroom to help us express our feelings.  Feel free to practice them at home!

Cameron and Sydney, from Miss Cegielski’s class are showing our friends how to use bug statements.

Each Friday in Math we have been playing different games to target math skills such as math facts and number sense.  This week the students were able to choose between all of the games we have learned so far.  Students played Number Burglar, Make 10 Go Fish, Ten Frame War, and Addition Tic Tac Toe.  Each pair of students chose two games to play.   I heard many conversations between partners involving deep mathematical thinking.  The students are really improving on the strategies behind the games!

Our science provocations this week have centered around observing and using magnifying glasses.  Many students expressed an interest in working on their observation skills by completing observational drawings.  We decided that we wanted to do observational drawings of a tree.  At the end of the day we spent some time observing the tree and drawing.  The students made detailed observations such as “leaves are already starting to fall” and “there’s a nest in this tree.” We will continue developing our observation skills next week!

Remember that Monday is picture day! Students DO NOT have to wear uniforms. Also Wednesday is our planting day.  Again, students do not have to wear uniforms.  Please send them in clothes that you don’t mind if they get dirty. Have a great weekend!