IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Throughout the year, we will be doing various problems during math workshop so that the children have a true understanding of how to solve number story problems. This week we started division problems! An example problem is “There are 4 pencils. There are 4 friends. How many pencils does each friend get?” These problems have been hard this week, but the children are really determined to try and figure them out. Their first inclination is to add the two numbers so we have been talking about what to do with the two numbers. I have really been proud of their hard work!

Today we began coming up with our story for our movie. Niall and Noah worked with me during free choice, and came up with some great ideas for how our story begins. At the end of the day we discussed what the three of us talked about during free choice, and then our friends had some more great ideas for the story. We are so excited to show you the movie!

I wanted to apologize because I have been working on getting a field trip planned for the past 6 weeks or so, but I am having trouble getting things scheduled. I have been trying to get a field trip to a studio of some sort or a production company so that we can see what it takes to take an idea and get it in movie or tv form. If you have any ideas or suggestions, let me know.

Today for Math Workshop our Butler teachers all took a group and worked on various concepts to fulfill one of their classroom requirements. Two groups focused on writing numbers 1-10 correctly using books as a reference. One group focused on counting coins and finding the most efficient way to show various amounts of money. One group focused on making posters that showed various ways to get to 1, 2, 3, and 4. The children were really engaged during this time, and it was good practice to work on the skills that were addressed.

This morning the children decided they wanted to make a puppet show movie that we would show to our friends. At free choice, Maggie, Isaac, and Israel worked on puppet show preparation. Israel worked on writing what puppets we needed for the show. Maggie worked on writing hurricane facts that we think we should share with others, and Isaac worked on writing hurricane safety tips. At the end of the day each shared their work, and the rest of the group seemed to really agree that their work was needed.

Once a month we are going to present the children with a writing prompt. Writing prompts are going to be in our children’s lives throughout their schooling so we want to make sure that they have experience with them. Today we introduced our first writing prompt. It was one piece of paper with lines on it. The prompt asked the children to write about a time they helped a friend. The children had 10 minutes to write or draw about a time they helped a friend. I was SO impressed by how the children responded. They worked really hard, did the best they could, and responded in a thoughtful manner. I was so proud of this first attempt and am excited to see how they grow throughout the rest of the year!

Today we began making our wind chime made out of materials you sent in. The children really were interested in making this representative of all of the children in class so we put A LOT of things on it. We will finish it tomorrow and then put it up so we can all be reminded of this project!

The children discussed today making a puppet show about hurricanes and hurricane safety. They remembered that Nicole Misencik taught us about tornado safety so they wanted to teach you all about hurricane safety. Next week we decided that we probably need to research more about hurricanes since our puppet show is focused on it.

So excited about this puppet adventure!!

Veronika Lewis and Ally Wessels
Blog about Miss Estridge and Mrs. Bucher’s classes 10/31/12

Today was a great and busy day! There were multiple instances of discovery today during math workshop. One of the students observing the one hundreds chart before math workshop shouted out “Ooh Miss. Estridge, I noticed something new”. Of course we were all eager to see what was found. She noticed that as you go down the number chart in the same column, the number goes up by ten and has the same number in the second digit every time. For example, she pointed out how after 9 it goes, 19, 29, 39, 49, etc. “There’s always a 9!” After that student made this discovery, so many other students started to notice a pattern and math workshop journals working with tens today went a lot faster for many of them due to their newly learned knowledge. Miss Estridge afterwards let them explore the pattern by coming up to the chart and asking for proof of their knowledge. “What is 47 plus 10?” Ms. Estridge said, and the class IMMEDIATELY answered “57” in unison. Miss Estridge exclaimed, “How do you know that so fast?” “That’s when the children explained the pattern to Miss Estridge and took on the teacher role, proud of their new findings.

Before story workshop, both Mrs. Bucher and Ms. Estridge’s classes discussed the effect of critiquing and how to make each other’s final products better using each other’s knowledge. One student in Miss Estridge’s class went up to another to ask for a critique. He was making a comic book and so far had done huge drawings with minimal written words on the pages. His critique was to make it look more like a comic book by making pictures smaller, and boxing them up. The fact the kids were comfortable enough to approach each other for help and ideas at such a young age made this an exciting event of the day. They understood the idea of critiquing really well!
Mrs. Bucher’s class discussed current events which are beneficial when learning to teach real world experiences. Since hurricane Sandy has been such an apparent topic in the news recently Mrs. Booker decided to bring it up to her class and see what some of their responses would be when posed with the question “How would you help them?”. Multiple ideas were given about raising money. One student said, “We can use the money in my piggy bank to fly out there and help them.” Another boy said to buy tools to rebuild and fix things. The Butler School 60 is so generous and full of amazing ideas to attempt to solve real world problems.
We fed the chickens today in Miss Estridge’s class! What a fun experience. The special part of chicken week for Miss Estridge’s class today was that a child suggested doing observational research or drawings of the chickens, their coup, and eggs during the feeding time. This was such a wonderful idea that multiple children chose to partake in this. The fact they wanted to explore chickens beyond just feeding them was awesome. The kids also collected two eggs today and since it was the last day of the month, they were used to bake cupcakes for the class! There were two children’s birthdays in October so at the end of the month, today, they were celebrated. These two kids got to partake in the making of these cupcakes and learned about experimentation and recipe in the kitchen. Awesome real life exploration for them!

So, today we revisited the conversation we started yesterday regarding how we could help those that were affected by Hurricane Sandy. The children were talking about wanting to make something and then sell it. One friend offered making a wagon or something really big, but then we thought that it might not bring a lot of money if we just have one thing. Jamari then said, “Why don’t we do a puppet show and they have to pay to come!” As soon as those words came out my friends became so excited talking about how some did a puppet show last year and it was so fun! Everyone seemed really excited and interested in what we were going to do. Heaven suggested doing a puppet show about a hurricane since we are talking about hurricanes and weather. We had to get ready to go home, but we will see tomorrow if we want to go that direction with our puppet show or not…SO FUN!