IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

This morning, Regan and Messi came in and began looking at the light table area together. At this area, we have a provocation that says, “Where does food come from?” and various seeds, bones, dried herbs, and books about food preparation. Its a neat place that the kids are naturally drawn to throughout the day. Unique to their exploration this morning, Messi and Regan came up with an idea- “Lets write a story here- together!” Messi and Regan each grabbed books and writing materials and began crafting a story together. They negotiated what would happen in their story and took turns acting it out on the light table with the materials. They worked in complete harmony. We used their example as a teaching point today during story workshop. Messi and Regan shared their process of working together and friends were encouraged to work with a friend to tell their stories. We had some really great partnerships and some really fun stories come out of this collaborative experience. It is my goal that eventually,  the children begin to collaborate during Reader’s Workshop and Math Workshop as well.

Tags: collaboration, story telling, story workshop

Tomorrow night at 6 p.m. there will be a meeting for anyone who can volunteer to help with the Carnival! Hope to see many of you there!

This morning, in word study, we played a new sight word game. It was called Kaboom.  The kids had to read the sight words on each card in order to keep the card.  If they picked a card that said kaboom they had to put all of their cards back!  While we talked a lot about playing for word study this was also a great conversation about games in general as we introduced this.  As a class we decided that all games do not have to have a winner.  Some games can be played together or just played for plain old fun.  It was interesting to hear what the kids thought about playing without finding a winner.

Later this afternoon, during math workshop, we had a wonderful conversation about efficiency.  As a class we have been using base ten blocks as a strategy to solve our math problems. Today, we talked about how using all ones (small cubes) might not be the most efficient way to use our materials.  A friend suggested that we use the rods (they equal 10) to get to higher numbers in a more efficient manner.  While this may save on time efficiency also helps us with our number sense.  If kids are able to understand that 10 groups of 10 make 100 they will have an easier time decomposing and building numbers in their heads.  This is a something that we will be working on throughout the year as we become even stronger mathematicians!

Last week, Mr. Henderson asked our friends, “Where do potato chips come from?” It led to some very interesting conversation about how exactly a chip is made. We came up with three main theories

1. chips are made by cutting a potato in half and cooking it

2. chips are made by mashing them and cooking it

3. chips are made by slicing a potato thin and cooking it

Today, our daily question asked the kids which method they believed would get the best results. We found that our class had almost an exact three way tie with the three theories. After some talking as a group, Breanna and Addie suggested something clever- why not try all three ways? We prepped three potatoes in three different ways and baked them. Friends wrote predictions as to which way they believed would work best. We talked about how we were being like scientists predicting and testing results. It also reminded us of chefs that have to create recipes for others to enjoy! After testing the three potatoes, we discovered that thin slicing was definitely the way to go with the rest of our potatoes. The results were delicious. We are finding that one of the best parts of sharing a treat as a class is sitting in a big circle and talking with one another. Miles commented that it felt like we “were a family” when we sat in such a way. J’Den said, “It feels like we’re all riding our bikes together when we eat like this.” Such a beautiful analogy for their feeling of community in our classroom.

Tags: cooking, curious, friendship, project

In Reader’s Workshop last week the students were identifying the characters, setting, and events in their stories.  This week we have started to talk about problem and solution.  I read When Sophie Gets Really Angry and The Cloud and the students helped me find the problem and solution.  In Word Study we learned a new game, KABOOM.  Friends take turns reading sight words and if they read the word correctly they get to keep the card.  If you get a KABOOM card all of your cards go back into the pile.  The students really enjoyed working together on this new game.  In Math Workshop we discovered that base ten blocks are a really helpful material for our problem solving.  Many students realized that they could solve problems with bigger numbers using the base ten blocks.  We had another powerful closing meeting in Mrs. Clark’s room today.  It’s exciting to see the students building a stronger community between both of our classrooms.  Today, Mr. Ward read a story called Flabbersmashed which was all about friendship.  We gained valuable ideas about friendship during our discussion after the story!