IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

This morning, in word study, we played a new sight word game. It was called Kaboom.  The kids had to read the sight words on each card in order to keep the card.  If they picked a card that said kaboom they had to put all of their cards back!  While we talked a lot about playing for word study this was also a great conversation about games in general as we introduced this.  As a class we decided that all games do not have to have a winner.  Some games can be played together or just played for plain old fun.  It was interesting to hear what the kids thought about playing without finding a winner.

Later this afternoon, during math workshop, we had a wonderful conversation about efficiency.  As a class we have been using base ten blocks as a strategy to solve our math problems. Today, we talked about how using all ones (small cubes) might not be the most efficient way to use our materials.  A friend suggested that we use the rods (they equal 10) to get to higher numbers in a more efficient manner.  While this may save on time efficiency also helps us with our number sense.  If kids are able to understand that 10 groups of 10 make 100 they will have an easier time decomposing and building numbers in their heads.  This is a something that we will be working on throughout the year as we become even stronger mathematicians!

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.

Last week, I had a conversation with three friends about games.  Raki, Reid, and Tylisha all shared their thoughts on how playing games was fun and cheating was not good.  Today we took this small group conversation and shared it with all of our other friends and asked what they thought about games.  Here are some of their quotes from the conversation.

*Miles- When you are playing with a friend you always should have fun & it’s more likely about fun instead of winning. It’s more important than winning because winning is more like cheating sometimes and having fun is more like following the rules and doing what the rules say.

*Reid- Well, It’s more about having fun because if you win you might brag and bragging is like bullying.  If you brag it’s not nice to the loser who lost the game.

*Townes- It’s kind of what Reid said, if you said, “I won! I won!  You loose!”  The looser won’t be happy because the winner bragged.

*Ruth- When your cheating it’s like lying and lying is like keeping a secret from someone.  Then if you lie a bunch you don’t know where to start telling the truth.

I’m really looking forward to see where this game project takes us.  I can already see that we are going to be talking a lot about being fair and working together. 🙂

Save the Date for our Fall Carnival!

November 16th 6-8pm

crafts, food, face painting, games,silent auction

Please also let us know if you can volunteer for a 30 minute shift, donate a silent auction item, or connect us with vendors for pizza, plates, and small prizes.

We can’t wait to see you there!

Tags: family focus, family night, relationships

Tylisha and Selam doing boat pose.

Raki and Dorothy doing the open heart pose.

Maxwell and Miles doing the boat pose.

A part of our day every day is yoga.  On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday the kids go to Mrs. William’s classroom for yoga. On Mondays and Tuesdays we do it in our classroom together.  Today, we worked on some of the things that Mrs. Williams taught us last week.  We reviewed our partner poses; boat, open heart, and see saw.  I was so proud of the way the kids were able to work together and get along with on another.  Even if someone messed up it wasn’t a big deal and they could try again.  I love how our community is working together!