IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Yoga is quickly becoming one of our favorite times of the day in room 107! Our yoga specialist, Mrs. Williams, is at school on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. We still have yoga on Mondays and Tuesdays, but I lead it on those days and help the students practices some of the positions and routines they are learning the rest of they week. Take a look at some of the moves we have learned so far!

Danielle and Abel focus on their breathing upon entering the classroom.

Olivia and Cece do the downward dog.

Davi does a variation of downward dog, the dolphin.

As we begin to calm down, Kynden shows us how to do child’s pose.

John does the butterfly towards the end of our routine.

Jamaria shows us how we end our yoga time…by mediating with a relaxing, lavender scented eye pillow.

In story workshop right now, we are really working on understanding what a story is. Yesterday, I told two stories. One was vague and boring. It ran on and on and on with no real conclusion. The second was a beautiful tale with descriptive details. The story contained a clear beginning, middle, and end. After I had told both stories, I asked students which they liked better and why. They gave me a whole list of reasons why the second story was better. Together, we used this list to better understand some important features of a good story. We decided that 1) a story makes sense and 2) has a real ending.

Today I told two stories again. The first was about “a person.” At the end of the story, I asked the students if they had any questions. Geneva asked me who my story was about. I said it was about “a person,” but no one seemed to think that was sufficient information, so I told a second story.  The second was about a five year old little boy named Jack. Jack wore a blue shirt and green shorts in the story. He was afraid of snakes, and his teacher’s name was Miss Suzy. After finishing these stories, we talked about the word character. As a class, we concluded that it’s important to know details about the characters in your story.

Following our mini lesson, all of the students came up with great characters for their stories during independent work time. Characters in today’s stories included: a baby boy bear, someone’s mommy who likes to watch TV, a zoo terrorizing dinosaur, a family of snakes, a man names Mr. Smith who was 23 years old, Clifford, and black and blue Spidermen. It was fun getting to hear the students share their thoughtful stories with each other.

A particularly fun conversation I overheard during story workshop today involved a penguin. I was listening to Ellie and Davi tell their story about the zoo. Towards the end of their story, a dinosaur entered the zoo and began scaring all the animals. Naturally, the animals all began to run away. One of which, was the penguin.

Ellie -The penguin was scared and he flew away.

Davi – Penguins don’t fly. They waddle.

Ellie – Oh..the penguin waddled away…

Their story continued after this very calm conversation in the middle of their story telling. The girls didn’t think much of it, however I was excited to see this dialogue taking place. That conversation is an example of the power of stories and the growth that can occur when students engage in story telling together. Students teach each other factual information. They share rich verbs and adjectives that can be used in the future, and together, they turn a good story into a great story!

Today was our first day using math journals this year, and they were a big hit!

Thus far this year, we have been exploring different math materials. We have been figuring how to use math materials properly, how to put them away appropriately, and how we can use them to solve different math problems. The first week, we learned about unifix cubes, bears, and links.

Last week students learned how to draw pictures to help them solve a problem. They were exposed to a number line during share time. They explored something called a ten frame, which is a tool that helps us understand the number 10 better and all the different ways it can be made.

Olivia, Jace, Ellie, John, and Abel represent different numbers on our life size 10 frame.

Yesterday we all explored a tool called a 20 Bead String together. We each got to make our own, and then today, students had the option of working with their 20 bead string with a partner during morning choices.

During math workshop today, I read a story problem I had written on big paper. A friend decided we should use bears to solve the problem, so Faith came up and solved the problem for us using the bears. Then I talked about “making our thinking and problem solving visible.” I told the students that I wanted to be able to know what their brains were thinking when they solved the problem, so together we drew a picture of our problem solving process on the big paper, right underneath the question.

Then it was the kids turn. I told them that they were going to get to solve their very own math problem by themselves in their very own math journal. This morning, I had cut out and glued a story problem into each child’s math journal.  Together, we read the story problem. After we had read the problem a couple times, I handed each child their journal. They were able to take their journal, pick one of the math materials we have learned how to use, grab a pen/pencil, and then find a “stuck like glue” spot to solve their problem and show their thinking in their math journal.

After students had worked on the problem independently, they put away their materials. Then we listened to Jackson share how he had solved today’s problem with links.

I look forward to more mathematical thinking and problem solving in the future!

*Material request: In addition to solving problems in our math journal, we are going to begin playing math games next week. A material we will need for one of our games is egg cartons. If you have any, could you please send them into school? Thank you!

This morning, at the beginning of Readers Workshop, I read the book, The Littlest Acorn. It is a beautiful story about an acorn to runs into a tall pine tree, a brightly colored daisy, and a sweet smelling rose. With each encounter, the little acorn notices how different he is from the other plants and wonders what might be special about him. In the end we learn that the Little Acorn grows up into a strong, tall tree.

After reading the book, I sent students out for their independent reading time. After they read independently, all students returned to the rug for share time. Today, Abel shared his reading. He read some of his book, Grumpy Bird. When Abel was done, I asked him what he did to help him read his books today. He said that he looked at the pictures and the words. This lead into a discussion about differences in our reading and our books. All of last week, we talked about how good readers can read books by looking at the pictures. However, today, Abel showed us that good readers can look at the words in their books too.

This week, I am going to begin putting books into your children’s reading bags. Some of the books will be based on your child’s interests. Others will be based on their reading needs. The conversation today was great because it affirmed students that when that happens, some of us will have books with lots of pictures. Some of us will have books with pictures and words, and some of us will have books with lots of words and few to no pictures. All of those things are different, but just like the story about the Little Acorn, we know that different isn’t bad. We’re all different and that ok!

Abel reading Grumpy Bird in the share chair!

During morning choice time today, we introduced the water color paints. Each child who made this choice had their very own place mat, paper, paper towel, pen, and paint brush. Together we talked about the proper way to use these materials and the appropriate steps to take when we are painting with water colors. First, we dipped our paint brush in the water. Then we dipped our paint brush in the paint, and lastly, we dapped our paint brush on the paper towel to remove the excess paint and water before we began painting. We also talked about using the pens and paint brushes gently, so as not to hurt either one. The students did a wonderful job with this experience. They really respected the process and materials beautifully. Together, we are finding the respect leads to more respect. If we can respect and be gentle with our materials, we can be more respectful of each other. Similarly, as we learn to be gentle with our friends, we have a better understanding of how to respect the materials around us!

Chloe uses the water color paints to paint her drawing of her family.