IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Oliver and William are building numbers with the base ten blocks.

Avelyn and Wyatt work together to build their numbers with the base ten blocks.

Over the past week we have been working a lot on place value in Math Workshop.  As a whole we want the kids to understand that each place in a number represents more than just that one number (ie: 100s, 10s, and 1s).  One way we are working on this is through the use of base ten blocks.  The kids use the base ten blocks to build and represent numbers.  For example, if a child had 124 they would show us 1 flat (100), 2 rods (each is worth 10), and 4 cubes (each is worth 1).  Today the kids rolled dice 3 different time to create a 3 digit number.  They then used the base ten blocks to build that number and represent each place.  The rest of the week we will be working with place value even more to continue the building and decomposing of numbers.  It is our eventual goal that the kids can see a number and visualize it without the blocks. This will help them in all areas of math later down the road!

Today it could not have happened more beautifully…Isai was sharing his weather report saying that it was going to be a mix of rain and snow. Not ten minutes later did it start snowing! It was such an exciting and unexpected thing to see! The children and I discussed that we did not make a snow collage so we are going to make one tomorrow just so we are prepared for the next time it snows.

To help us prepare for our movie we started working on story boards. Heaven, being our writer for our story, began working on writing and drawing what the story is going to look like. By using story boards (we discussed how people who make commercials, news, magazines, movies, tv shows all use story boards) the other friends in class will know what to do with their roles. After Heaven worked on the story boards during free choice, she shared her work and our friends discussed some great things that she was doing!

Noah H. brought in a chess/checkers game a few weeks ago, and today we brought it out for the first time. They really enjoyed playing this game today and it showed how collaborative games can be!

Today was a very special day in our year…it was the first snow of the season!

The first snow is always so exciting in kindergarten and first grade. So, instead of ignoring this special occasion, we honored it today by taking a break from our morning meeting and heading into the hallways to look at the snow fall through the windows! It really was beautiful and the kids enjoyed it!

In readers workshop, we are spending our second week talking about Flippy Dolphin and vowels. Last week we began talking about the different vowels and the sounds they make. We learned that if you are sounding out the word with one sound but it doesn’t work, you can use Flippy Dolphin to flip over and try the other sound that vowel makes. The kids are doing a nice job, but vowels can be tricky, so we’re taking some extra time to firm up our understanding of vowels and their sounds. Today we read Sue MacDonald Had A Book by Jim Tobin. It’s a fun story about the vowels (to the tune of Old MacDonald) if you ever want to check it out at the library sometime.

During math workshop, we are also reviewing and extending what we discussed last week…division. Last week, we only divided numbers into groups of two. This week, we are beginning to divide numbers in to groups of three and more.

In our last workshop of the day, story workshop, we did our second gallery walk of the year. During morning and free choices, students were able to do an observational drawing of a lamp in our room. Three of those drawings were selected and hung in the room. Then, during story workshop, students moved around the room with a post-it writing down compliments and suggestions for each drawing. As a class, we critiqued the three drawings. Tomorrow, those three students will do a second draft of their lamp drawing, and we will be able to take a look at what critique and revision really looks like.

Olivia and Jaeda work on their observational drawings of a lamp during morning choice time.

Additional reminders:

Thursday is picture retake day. If you would like your child to have their school picture retaken, please let me know, and I will send home a second picture order form for you.

Friday is our Fall Carnival from 6-8. I will be sending home a flyer and tickets tomorrow. This Fall Carnival will be in place of the November Family Night that was originally scheduled for Thursday.

Lastly, we are still working on our classroom identity panels. If you have not sent in a letter about your child yet, please do so. We will be sharing the remainder of those over the next couple of weeks, and I would love for every child to have something to share! Thanks so much!

So the next day after I wrote you that email about if you had any thoughts or connections to studios,etc I got a connection to wish-tv! I am so excited to be going to wish tv in a couple of weeks. We will be headed to the studio for a tour and then we will see them all work together to put the noon news telecast live!

When I talked with the children today about the field trip their eyes filled with such excitement. This field trip will not only help with our study of weather and meteorology, but it will also help us with the idea that it takes a lot of collaboration to put on a telecast, and in our case a movie!

This week we have been talking about flippy dolphin and how to flip the sound of a vowel until you have the word sounded out. Today I read Sue Macdonald had a Book sung to the tune of Old Macdonald had a Farm, and the children LOVED IT!! They were so engaged and really paying attention to the short and long vowels that we were exploring!

We had an open house tonight for prospective families, and they just loved our room and what your children have created! There was so much excitement and interest in our program, and it just made me even more proud to be a part of this school. Thank you for being a part of it too.