IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Over the past few days the kids have had a chance to create their own games with boards and pieces that are set out in the morning time.  They have large interest in games and we want to continue with this to develop it into our first class project.  Mr. Ward & and I were so impressed!  Here are a few pictures and game descriptions from the past few days.

Raki, Selam, and Kayla playing King Gal.

“First all of the pieces go right here.  She is trying to get as many kings as she can.  There are so many levels.  After you get a boss, you get a bosser.  When everyone gets a bosser then you can start taking everyone’s pieces.  When you have a bosser and take everyone’s pieces you win.”

Avelyn and Ruth playing Fruity Jump.

“One person is a fruit or duck.  When someone is next to you they need to jump you, but that’s a good thing because you need to get around and the 1st person to get around is the winner.  If you jump it gives you a extra space.  It’s all about luck.  It’s all about the dice and luck because you have to get the right number.”

Ruth, Oliver, Miles, Andrew, and Jonah playing Animal Tracking.

“You start at you blue, yellow, red, or green dot.  Whatever color you start with you have to go left.  If you get to your arrow and it’s too many numbers you have to go back all the way back to start.  If you land directly on your arrow you win.  If you land on a black dot you get an extra animal which helps you win.  You move by rolling a yellow or red dice.  If you want low numbers you roll the red dice.  If you want higher numbers you roll the yellow dice.”

We had our first family night of the year tonight.  It was game themed! Thank you to all of the families who were able to make it and join in on the fun!  We will be having another game night after fall break so there will be another chance to join the fun. Here are a few pictures from tonight’s game night.

Bingo!

Math Games

More Math Games!

Duck, Duck, Goose 🙂

This week we are responsible for taking care of our school chickens.  Today, we went out as a class for the first time.  We give them water, food, and checked for eggs!  We collected 4 eggs.  Check out the pictures below to see some of our friends taking care of the chickens.

In Math Workshop today we added another component to our math boxes.  We learned about how to do a math sort with addition problems.  Each kid was given three main groups to sort into.  For example: group one could might have been “less than 10.”  Group two might have been “the same as 10” and group three might have been “more than 10.”  Once they had their groups they had a pile of addition problems that they had to solve and decide where they fit.  It was great to see how the kids were working with the numbers, but at the same time enjoying it because they were playing a “game!”  They were able to use materials to help them solve the problems if needed or some were able to break the numbers apart in their head!  During share time at the end of the Math Workshop, Oliver shared that he could decompose numbers and everyone get excited about our new fancy math word.

David is using base ten cubes to help him with his math sort.

Oliver is working on his math sort.

Townes is using unifix cubes to help him with his math sort.

Mr. Ward and Melina playing checkers

Shayla, Oliver, and Jonah playing UNO

Ruth and Maxwell playing Chinese Checkers

Each morning, during Free Exploration, the kids have a few choices set out to explore before Morning Meeting.  As I have blogged on other days, the kids are really into chess and checkers.  Today, that love of game playing expanded to Chinese checkers and Uno.  Different friends brought in game boards to play and share with others.  They worked together, took turns, problem solved, and helped on another as they played all the different games.  As Mr. Ward and I looked around the room almost every child was playing a game!  Looking forward, our hope in the next few weeks to start creating games of our own!