IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

This week in Reader’s Workshop we have talked a lot about retelling stories using the different story elements (characters, setting, problem, supporting details, and solution.)  On Monday Mr. Ward introduced the the retelling glove and each finger had a story element on it to remember.  On Tuesday, we gave the kids bookmarks to use during their independent reading time to help them.  They were a hit!  They have been using them for two days now.  (If you look below you can see Jonah’s in his lap.)

Jonah and Reid working together to retell the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Story Elements.

In Story Workshop this week we have started an author study on Todd Parr.  Over the past few days we have been talking about things that we notice in his books.  For example, Todd Parr always writes a note to his readers at the end of each books.  Today we added that to our list to help us remember his writing.  For the rest of the week we will be learning more about Mr. Parr’s own personal life.  Be on the look out in the next few weeks.  Starting next week the kids are going to be able to pick an author they want to study with an eventual goal that they will create a piece of writing with the same style.

Today our daily question was “Do you think we should have science meetings to get ready for our field trip?”  Most of the students answered yes to the question! They are excited to start preparing to solve the mystery of the leak at the Children’s Museum.  This morning we practiced using pipettes during our science investigation: “How many drops of water can fit on a penny?”  During morning meeting, the students shared their results and we realized that we got a lot of different answers.  Here is a part of our conversation:

Cameron: “I got nine drops on heads and 10 drops on tails.”  Isabella: “I got 17 and 18 drops.”  Jermaine: “I got 20 drops.”

I then asked the students why they thought our results were so different.

Himiko: “It could be different amounts of water because we have two different pipettes.”

Chairo: “I think the pennies could be different like one could be rough and one could be smooth.”

Jermaine: “It matters if the penny is on heads or tails.”

Their theories about our different results were very thoughtful.  We will continue our investigation this week and start our science meetings soon!

Isabella and Jermaine test how many drops of water will fit on a penny.

Martavious, Kaitlyn, and Himiko investigate our penny theories from this morning.

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

As I mentioned yesterday, we had morning meeting with Mrs. Clark’s class.  We met again today and Mrs. Clark led the group in thinking more deeply about what a leader is.  Mrs. Clark shared pictures with the group and the students had to put their thumbs up if the picture showed a leader and thumbs down if it did not.  Some of the leaders we talked about included Nemo, the Lorax, and Merida from Brave.  The students shared why they felt that these characters were leaders for example: “she was brave” and “he stood up for the trees.” We then made a list together of what a good leader does: they are brave, they are helpful, they are respectful, they stand up for others, and they help the bullies. We plan to continue joining our two classrooms together each Monday morning to continue building community and developing our understanding of leadership as the oldest students in our building!

Today, it was raining, and we talked about how water is beneficial to plants. The kids and I discussed what a rain gauge is and we decided we need to put one outside in our garden. We learned that the garden needs about an inch of water each week. We talked about how if the garden does not get enough rain, we will need to water it with a hose.  We also learned about the other needs of plants. We listened to a new song that told us that plants need:

water, air, light, soil, and space

After that, we watched a video about how to grow lima beans in plastic baggies with paper towels. We were confused- how could they grow without soil? We have been coming up with lots of questions about what soil exactly is- was perhaps the paper towel acting as some type of soil? Does soil mean dirt, or can it be sand as well? Can plants grow in other mediums? We plan to investigate the idea of soil in the future.

Tags: curious, garden, project