IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

This week during reader’s workshop, we have been learning what it means to compare and contrast two books. On Monday, we read the story Cinderella and followed it with the funny spin off story Chickenrella! Students noticed a lot that the stories had in common, as well as things that were different about the two stories. We had a conversation about the importance of finding similarities and differences in stories and students applied this new skill to their independent reading!

Today, we read the story The Gingerbread Man and The Stinky Cheese Man. We created a concept map that visually showed how these stories compared and in what ways they are different. I was amazing by some of the noticing that students made. Tomorrow, we will create a different kind of map that compares the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty and the story What Really Happened to Humpty?

Today, we continued to discover new genres of music. We practiced moving our bodies to bluegrass and classical music! This afternoon, I played one of the kids’ favorite genres thus far- polka- and gave them a challenge. Close your eyes and think of a story that matches the music. The stories were incredible. Dancing bears, magic holes, donkeys on mountains- the works! Friends were then encouraged to tell those stories during Story Workshop, while more polka music played. Its incredible how music affects our creativity. We are excited to try this again tomorrow, except with a new genre… What types of stories will we get then?

Tags: creativity, project, story telling, story workshop, writing

Every morning during morning meeting, friends are invited to shake hands with one another. Recently, we have been discussing the importance of making eye contact while doing this. Today, we had a conversation about other times when making eye contact could be important, such as share time. Friends even came up with reasons why making eye contact is important. They are as follows:

So you feel respected.

So they know you’re taking them seriously.

So they know you’re listening.

So they know you’re their friend.

Tags: collaboration, community

Today, we asked the kids, “Would you like to be a part of the recycling team?”  Over half of our class responded yes!  Last year, as a school we all recycled paper weekly and dumped it into our paper retriever outside in our parking lot.  A lot of the kids have been asking about it again this year and we are finally starting to collect again!  This week, friends from both 1-2 classes will be giving speeches to the rest of the school to talk about how we recycle and how we can do it at school.  Check back later this week or next week to see how this goes!  I know the kids are excited once again to help our planet!

We’ve started discussing time during math workshop this week. Today, we shared with each other what we know about how to tell time and what we know about clocks. Students said that you can tell time with clocks, watches, phones, computers, and timers. They said that most clocks are round and have 12 numbers that are written around the end of the clock. They also said that clocks have two hands (sometimes 3 if there is a second hand).

Together, we drew a clock and figured out where all the numbers went. We began exploring how to make the clock be an o’clock time.

After making a clock in their math journals, students were able to play a clock game with a partner. In the game, you roll a 12 sided die, and write whatever number you land on, on your clock. You and your partner take turns. The first person to fill in all the numbers on their clock (and put those numbers in the correct places) wins! The kids had a great time. We’ll keep exploring time all this week.

Spencer and Ben play the clock game together.