IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Yesterday, we took some to connect our current project with this week’s readers workshop study on perspective.

At the end of the day, after packing up, we all met together on the big rug to read a book about a shark’s food chain. We have read a couple books about food chain’s in general, but this was our first time looking specifically at the food chain of a shark. The book was excellent because it started with plankton, all the way at the very bottom of the food chain and then moved up, all the way to the top with the great white shark! We talked about plankton, mussels, lobsters, octopi, sea lion, and then sharks.

In the book, it stated that the great white shark doesn’t have any real predators that try to eat it. However, one of our students shared that, in some countries, people cut off the fins of sharks. After hearing this, we took some time to consider what a person’s perspective usually is when thinking of sharks. Then we took some time to consider what a shark’s perspective might be of humans, now knowing that some humans are predators of sharks. It was interesting to see the kids take some time to think about the fact that, these huge “dangerous” animals who are often times viewed as scary by humans, might actually be afraid of us.

One of our students has suggested that we build a large food chain of a shark to show other people in our school what a shark eats. My goal is that this study of a sharks food chain will lead to a greater understanding of how one animal impacts other animals and its ecosystem. Eventually, my dream would be for that understanding to transfer over to how each individual in OUR ecosystem (our school/classroom) impacts others!

We got to start all kinds of fun new stuff today! I’m really excited about the learning that will be happening this week!

In Reader’s workshop this morning, we began talking about perspective. I read a book called Bee and Me. It is about a bee that is flying away from a dog, and end ups flying into house and unintentionally scaring a child, until the two learn about each other and decide they don’t need to be scared anymore. The students talked about how the child’s perspective was that the bee was bad and they needed to kill the bee. The bee’s perspective was that she hadn’t done anything wrong and the big mean child was trying to hurt her for no reason. The study of perspective has the potential to lead to much deeper understanding of empathy. I look forward to looking at different events, past/present/and fictional from differing perspectives with the students this week.

In Math Workshop, we are talking about adding 10 this week. Today and tomorrow, our story problems involve adding 10 to a single digit number. The last two days of the week, we will be looking at adding 10 to a two digit number (10-90). During share time today, when we looked at all of our problems and answers next to each other, this is what the kids discovered…

When you add 10 to a single digit number:

-the answers are teens (excluding 11 and 12, we discovered)

-the first number of the answer is always a 1

-the second number of the answer is always the single digit number you were adding to 10

The kids were super excited once they realized the pattern and discovered they could figure out the answer without solving the problem with a manipulative first!

During Story Workshop today, we continued down the road of critique and began talking about revising our work. We looked at a series of drawings a student had done of a butterfly. We noticed the changes that were made and that the child drew five drafts before creating their final draft. Then we talked about why someone might choose to work on so many drafts of one work. The students decided that the child who drew the butterfly was trying to make it the best drawing it could be. Then during share time, Abel showed us a revision he had done for a cover of a book he was working on. Tomorrow, we will connect critique and revision and learn how to ask a friend to critique your work so that you can enter into the revision process.

Last but not least, we are taking care of the chickens this week! Today, we collected close to ten eggs. The kids are excited because we will get to use these eggs to bake our October birthday cupcakes on Wednesday!

Madeline feeds one of our school’s chickens!

Today was a special day for studio because all students were able to go to studio together. You may hear your child talking about studio throughout the week…it is always a highlight. On most weeks, students either go to studio on Thursday or Friday. Half of the class goes during math workshop on each day. This is a great opportunity because students are able to get more focused time from Mrs. Grotjan in the studio, and students are able to get extra one on one time with me during math workshop. This week, Mrs. Grotjan and I decided to have all students do studio together on one day. They enjoyed that time together, and also got to enjoy time in our courtyard studying different shapes they saw in the space. Our courtyard has been recently renovated. It was weeded and beautified on our gardening day a couple weeks ago. There was also work done in the courtyard over Fall Break by a service group who wanted to devote some of their time to our school! They students are reaping the benefits of a new place to learn and explore, especially on a day as beautiful as today!

One of our school’s goals and one of my own personal goals for the school year is to have our student create truly beautiful work that they take great pride and care in creating. Beautiful work isn’t just limited to art work. It includes our math problem solving, our stories and books, and any other products we create during our time here at the Lab School.

One belief we have is that, in order to create your best work, you need to do multiple drafts and go through a revision process until you are sure that what you have created is the best it can be.

In order to facilitate those sorts of revision processes, I have been teaching lessons in critique during story workshop this week. We have been talking about sharing our work with our peers so that they can give us helpful feedback and we can improve our books and stories.

Two words that we have been talking about are “specific” and “kind.” Anytime we give a compliment or a suggestion, it needs to be specific and kind. So instead of saying,  I like your pictures, a child might say, “I like the drawing of your pumpkin on your cover because you included accurate details like the stem and some lines.” And instead of saying, your words don’t look good, a child could say, “I’m having a hard time reading your words. You might consider putting bigger spaces in between your words so that they don’t all smush together and your readers can read them better.”

Today, during story workshop, we practiced critiquing each others work by doing a “gallery walk.” During morning choice time, I had students do an observational drawing of a sea shell. Then, during story workshop, I hung these drawings up around the rooms. Students had the opportunity to silently walk around the room, looking at the different drawings and taking notes on the things they liked and the things that could be improved. Then, we selected two of the drawings for a class critique. Students made comments like, “I like the way you drew spikes because the real shell had spikes on it too,” or “I think you could add lines to your drawing because the real shell had curly lines on it.”

It is my hope that this practice will lead to helpful, honest critique of our work through out the year and classroom culture full of pride and care in our beautiful creations!

Tomorrow is the last day for box tops! If you have any, please send them in with your child tomorrow. Thanks!