IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

This morning, our daily question was, “After break, would you like to have an author celebration?”

To our delight, 100% of our class answered YES! I haden’t planned on discussing the details during Story Workshop, but BreAnna had a great suggestion, “Lets come up with a team of people who can talk about what needs to be done!” Friends got so excited during this time that we decided we had to talk about our celebration then and there. Per BreAnna’s suggestion, we made a list of all the possibilities we would like to include for our Author Celebration.

Some of the suggestions were:

Invite families!

Have friends share their books on a stage

Have it after January 7 (Bea said, “We can’t have it on the 1st, we won’t be there!)

Have treats

Create a whole class book to share

The kids enthusiasm is CONTAGEOUS- and I love that they are making this event their own. One of the many great parts of being at The Lab School.

Today our classes joined together to watch the movie, Ruby Bridges.  The children were so excited to see the movie and they were making connections to what we have already discussed while they were watching.  Last week, we analyzed the different perspectives in the Norman Rockwell painting that depicts Ruby Bridges walking to school with the U.S. marshals.  When this part happened in the movie the students made the connection to the painting, “Look those are the marshals that protected her!”  They were completed engaged during the movie and we can’t wait to see their reactions to The Power of Children Exhibit at the museum tomorrow!

As you know, we have been working hard on critique and revision during Story Workshop.  Our Story Workshop Cycle has now grown to include the new phases that we have been working on: Think and Plan, Write a Draft, Critique, Revision, and Publish.  The students each have a clip with their name on it that they will move to reflect which part of the cycle they are working on.  Today we had one friend move into the publishing phase! Chairo started his final book and shared his experience at the end of the workshop.  Martavious shared a story that he wrote and published last year in Miss Estridge’s room.  It was great for the kids to see a finished product and have an idea of what they are working towards!

It was a wonderful, peaceful, and happy day today. This morning, we learned two new sight words, come and from, and we had a blast creating new jingles to help us remember them. The one for come is really beautiful, have your child sing it to you! I love how our class has been collaborating on creating music together for our sight words- it seems to fit so well with our Listening/Sound project!

This week, we are also examining different holidays that are celebrated around this time of year. Today, we learned about the traditions of Hanukkah and compared and contrasted them to traditions we know for Christmas. We had a great discussion about whether it was OK or not for people to celebrate different holidays (we decided it was, because “Everyone can be different”- BreAnna). We also read a story about a child who celebrated both of those holidays, which we also decided was ok (“Another different thing, an ok thing!”- Makenzi). We look forward to delving into more traditions as the week goes on.

Tags: collaboration, curious, differences, holidays, music, project, sound, traditions

Today was Mr. Henderson’s last day! We threw him a little party, with cards, gifts, and some treats. We also drew portraits of him which were awesome. We will definately miss him.

There were many other great parts to our day as well… we read the Polar Express and the kids had quite the surprise when they went to put on their coats for recess- bells were inside their pockets! It remains a mystery who put them inside and everyone was so excited about them. It was truly a great day. Your children are the best.