IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

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 🙂

Some of my favorite learning that occurs during the school year, is learning that flows out of projects.

We are getting deeper into our shark project this week! Today, after reading part of a book entitled, 100 Things You Should Know About Sharks, we entered into a mathematical discussion about length. In the book, we read that a whale shark is forty feet long. After reading, we talked about how long forty feet really is. One student proposed that we connect the pipes (a building material in our room) to make them forty feet long, so that we can see how long the whale shark is. Kids got right to work connecting the pipes, but soon realized that we had some more learning to do. Here are some of the comments and questions I heard:

“How will we know when it’s forty feet long.”

“It’s too long! I counted that we’ve used 122 pipes.” (Each pipe is about 1-2 inches long)

“How long is a foot?”

“It won’t fit inside! We have to go outside to the hallway.”

As is often true in life, we didn’t solve this problem or answer all of these questions before the day was through. And I feel very ok with that. Real learning occurs at a slow and natural pace. We’ll keep working on our pipes tomorrow and see waht learning comes from another day of exploration with sharks!

Aidan connects pips to try and see how long 40 feet is.

Today was a big day for books in room 107, for many different reasons!

First off, as many of you might have heard from your children, we are beginning the early stages of a project. Right now, it seems that we will be diving into a project about sharks, however, one of the most exciting things about projects is that they can change course at a moments notice, so stay tuned!

This morning, when the kids arrived at school, our classroom library was filled with brand new books about sharks. One of our books baskets is dedicated to shark books, as well as our book display shelf. Many students chose to spend their Morning Choice time exploring text and pictures about sharks.

Students look at shark books during Morning Choice time.

Later, after Readers Workshop, we took our first trip to the school library. Students learned how to take care of books. They also got to check out their very own book for the week. Last year, school library books stayed at school. However, this year, students are allowed to take their library books home to read with their families. All library books must be returned by the following Monday so that students can check out a new book. If a child doesn’t bring their library book back to school, they will have to wait to get a new library book until their previous book is returned.

I did not send our library books home today. I plan on having a classroom discussion tomorrow and sending them home at the end of the day on Tuesday. If students bring their library book back to school before the following Monday, they will have opportunities to go to the library on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for an additional library check out time. On these days, I will be sending small groups of students down to return their books (if they have read them and brought them back to school) and check out a new book. This will be optional, and there might be some days when we don’t make it to the “open library” time. However, it will always be our goal!

Lastly, we have started using books as a new material in our Story Workshop. At the beginning of the year, students were expected to create a story with materials. Now, students create a story with materials and then are expected to put their story in a book. The books provide a way for us to keep stories so that we can share them for longer. They create more accountability for the students and their story telling. They also give us an opportunity to work on letter work and writing of words. Students are excited about this latest addition to Story Workshop!

Madeline works on the illustrations of her book about her family.

After finishing his story using materials, Spencer transfers his story to a book.

Word study is now a constant part of our daily agenda. This is a time for students to play with letters, sounds, and words. Sometimes we do whole group word study. Other times students work independently or in pairs. Yesterday for word study, I wrote the name of one of our friends on the board. I then asked to students to go out in pairs and write down words that they could make using the letter in that name. After about five minutes, they came back and shared. Then, we came up with a few more words together.

Friends came up with eight words you can spell using the letters in Faith’s name.

This would be a really fun activity to do at home with your child. You could even write a word down on paper, and have them cut out the letters so that they could move the letters around and really build the words.

Later in the day, Spencer and Abel made math posters for us. The day before, these two friends had illustrated math strategies in their math notebooks in a very clear way. I then asked them to make a poster out of that strategy, so that I could hang it up for all friends to see and use for future problem solving. As they year continues, we will continue to add math strategies to our math board. So far, we have uni-fix cubes, tally marks, and a number line.

Abel works on his poster showing how to use tally marks.

At the end of the day, Mrs. Williams taught us how to be in control of our breathing. Each student received a cotton ball. They were told to put it on the palm of their flat hand and then try to blow the cotton ball to the very tip of their fingers. If it fell off, they had to start over. This was a great activity, even for adults. Later, students had to sit at one end of their yoga mat and try to blow their cotton ball all the way to the other end! Kids had a great time with this activity, and it is sure to lead to better breathing for yoga in the days to come.

Ben takes a deep breath and tries to blow his cotton ball all the way to the end of his yoga mat.

Today, during readers and math workshop, we were talking about finding “just right” books and numbers.

Yesterday, I told the story of the Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We talked about how Goldilocks was trying to find the porridge, chair, and bed that was just right for her. Today, I told the story of The Three Little Pigs and The Big Bad Wolf. We talked about how each pig built a house, but only one house was just right, because it was able to keep the wolf out.

Then we had our friend Hayes try on three different shirts…

The first shirt Hayes tried on was much to small. Students decided that this shirt would be just right for a baby but it wasn’t just right for Hayes.

This shirt was much too small

The second shirt Hayes tried on was much too big. Students decided that this shirt would be just right for “somone’s daddy” but not for Hayes.

This shirt was much too big.

Lastly, Hayes tried on the green shirt. Everyone agreed that this was the shirt that was just right for Hayes. The students really seemed to understand this visual of “just right.” They also seemed to understand that what is “just right” for one friend might not be what’s “just right” for another friend, but that’s ok.

This shirt was just right.

We used this to further our discussion about books, and then we came back to this conversation during math workshop when students were picking numbers to use in their story problem. I had included the numbers 8 and 5 in the story problem I put in their math notebooks for today. We talked about how, if you can solve the problem with those numbers in your head, those numbers are not just right for you. Similarly, if those numbers are so challenging that you don’t know where to begin solving that problem, those numbers aren’t just right for you either. The numbers are just right for you if you don’t know the answer automatically but you know what to do to solve it.

I then wrote different sets of numbers up on the board for students to choose from. I challenged them to pick the numbers that were “just right” for them.We will be continuing this “just right” conversation in all areas of our learning in the coming weeks.