IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Through our different science explorations I have been hearing things like “we need to be more scientific,” “we want to learn how to use science tools” and “we need notebooks, scientists have notebooks.” Last week I gave the students some science notebooks and today a few students began to record their thinking.  We have been exploring the idea of temperature and there have been three tubs of water for the students to use the thermometers with.  This morning one tub was warm, one had ice in it and was “freezing” and one was in between.  I asked the students: “Will the water stay the same temperature all day long? Can you keep track in your science notebook?”  Cameron and CJ immediately began taking the temperature of the water and writing it down. I asked them how we could tell if the water would change temperatures and Cameron decided we would have to check it again later in the day.  During morning meeting Cameron and CJ shared how they recorded their thinking in their notebooks.  This sparked more interest and discussion with the rest of our friends.  At the end of the day we had a group of students who checked on the water again.  We found out that two of the buckets were the same temperature and the one with the ice was a little colder.  The students also asked me great questions about using the thermometer that led to a discussion about Celsius and Fahrenheit.  We will continue using our notebooks and learning about science tools this week!

This week we read two stories by Peter H. Reynolds: Ish and The Dot.  After reading we talked about what gifts the different characters in the stories had.  Many students responded with the gift of art, creating, or trying their best.  We then moved into a discussion about our own gifts and what gifts we bring to our community.  We have a very wide variety of gifts in our room! Here are some of the students’ gifts:

J’Nayla: “the gift of communicating”

David: “the gift of basketball”

Kaitlyn: “the gift of friendship”

Paiton: “the gift of giving”

Mekhi: “the gift of reading”

The students made watercolors of their gifts.  When we are finished everyone’s painting will be displayed in the classroom!

On Tuesday every student in the class received their very on composition notebook to be used as a shark journal. Today, students had an opportunity to decorate their shark journals, and then during free choice time, a few of our friends decided to do some shark research. They began reading through our collection of shark books and writing down the fact they looked up. Here is some of the things they have learned so far…

Sharks are fish. – Abel

All sharks are predators. They eat other animals. – Abel

Whale sharks are 40 feet long. – Madeline

Great white sharks eat whales. – Madeline

Sharks sense electric fields to help them catch their pray. – Madeline

Megamouth shark means giant yawner. – Olivia

The megaladon was the largest shark. It was probably 65 feet long. – Geneva

I’m excited to see what our research uncovers next week!

In addition to doing shark research, it seems that some of our friends have been taking their new found shark interest home with them. On Wednesday, Ben made a great white shark out of a box and then brought it in to school to share! What shark stories to you have from home?

Ben dresses up in his Great White shark costume!

Today in Math Workshop, we introduced a new game, tic-tac-toe.  The kids had a board with multiple different sums on it.  They had to add numbers together to make the numbers in the boxes.  There was a lot of strategy involved.  The kids could block others from getting a tic-tac-toe!  They really loved playing and we did some number work at the same time!

Today, we had a special guest visitor… a dental student from IU School of Dentistry!  He came to talk to us about what it is like to be in dental school and show him some of his tools!  Students were engaged with what he was saying and truly wanted to know more!  They had wonderful questions to ask him and learned a lot from what he had to say!  Each student had something to contribute to our conversation and were excited to share what they have learned so far.

Moving forward with our project, we have a dentist coming next week to read to us and teach us about dental health and will hopefully be taking a trip to a dentist office very soon!

Tomorrow, we will be representing the number of teeth each child has lost in a graph, so be sure to ask your child about this experience!