IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

We read a story today called Punctuation Takes a Vacation.  All of the punctuation is being forgotten about so they decide to take a break.  This story began some great discussion on the different types punctuation and why we need punctuation.  I challenged the students to fix a spot in the story that they were working on where they forgot punctuation.  We will continue exploring punctuation during Story Workshop this week.  On the Wednesday night writing homework challenge your child to go back and check for punctuation and capital letters!

During Math Workshop some of our friends have encountered addition problems that have regrouping into the tens or hundreds place.  I have been blown away by the students’ creativity in solving these challenging problems.  Many students are creating their own meaning and coming up with a way to record these problems that makes sense to them.

We started a new routine at the end of the day…daily news! During pack up and snack the students are now writing about something that we did during the day.  Be sure to check their folders tonight to see what they came up with!

Today during Reader’s Workshop the children had a new challenge.  They had to find a partner and work together to write a caption for a picture they were given of their classmates! The students really worked hard to observe the picture and come up with a sentence to describe what was happening in the picture. I was really proud of their cooperation with each other while they worked.  Tomorrow we will continue our study of Informational Texts by hunting for the text features that we learned about in nonfiction weather books that are in their book bags!

During Reader’s Workshop we have been focusing on informational text features such as headings, table of contents, glossary and pictures with captions.  Today we practiced writing captions for pictures using pictures of ourselves in action.  The students enjoyed connecting with a partner to come up with a caption.  In Story Workshop our writers have been working hard to publish their stories from their author’s study.  A few friends have finished completely and are waiting to bind their books.  I have been impressed with the attention to detail and stamina throughout this project.  We have been working hard on this for a long time and their dedication truly shows in their beautiful work!