IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

This week we have been exploring chunking. We have been focusing on prefixes such as th-, ch-, wh-, sh- as well as endings like -ing, -ed, -er, -s. Once we know those beginnings and endings it is easier to read them in words.

Today we explored chunking by looking for words we know in words we do not know. We gave each child a book and had them circle all of the words they know whether it is words within words or words in general. The children were so excited to circle all of the words they knew and then they started to sound out words that they did not know because they chunked it!!

Today when we came back from yoga, some friends from Miss Bowers class were in our room waiting for us. They are doing a project on teeth right now so they did a survey with our class to see how many friends have lost between 0-10 teeth. Our friends did such a nice job listening to Miss Bowers’ friends and participating in the survey, and they were so excited to share how many teeth they each have lost!

I have been really impressed the last few days watching friends with their story workshop books. There are so many children that have really embraced working on drafts of their books instead of doing it once and being done. The idea behind the drafts is that children are looking critically at their work and are editing and revising to make a high quality piece of work. It is so thrilling to see the children be so invested in their work!!

I loved being able to see how deep friends were thinking about their math today! Friends were making connections, feeling confident, and working on their math pocket. I do not know if I have shared information about the math pockets with you, but the math pockets are something the children can work on once they have completed their notebooks. The things inside their math pockets are filling in hundred charts with missing numbers, ordering numbers 1-20, tracing numbers, etc. Whatever they need in terms of number work, we give them. The children really enjoy working on this because it is something that we do not get to do often because they usually are still working on their notebooks when math workshop is finished. Anywho…just wanted to share how proud I am of their thinking!

Today Miss Jeffrey led a wonderful lesson on chunking words. We call it Chunky Monkey. So far we have discussed Ready Rooster, Stretchy Snake, and now we learning about Chunky Monkey. These are all strategies to help us figure out words when we are having trouble reading them. Chunky Monkey helps us figure out an unknown word by looking at known words in the unknown word. For example, “jumping” We might know the word “jump” and we might know the ending “ing” so we chunk those words together to form the word “jumping” It was great to see so many children catch on while Miss Jeffrey was using snap cubes to form different words! We will continue to explore this idea the rest of the week as well as beyond this week.

This week we are going to focus on learning about thunderstorms. If we are going to communicate about storms to others during our weather report then we have to know more about them. So, today we did an experiment where the children filled a clear plastic cup with water. Then they added shaving cream to the top of it. The last thing the children did was add blue food coloring to the top of the shaving cream and watched what happened…Selah described it as the “rain” was heavier then the “clouds” so the rain fell down into the water!! I then asked if that was how clouds were, and Isaac responded that the clouds absorb the rain and then the rain becomes to heavy for it so it falls. I was really blown away by how this experiment as well as discussion helped the children communicate what clouds do! We will continue to do this experiment throughout the rest of the week so that all of the children can participate in it, and let me tell you there were so many friends that kept coming up asking “Is it my turn?” So, I look forward to seeing and hearing the many other thoughts that come from the children!

Today we had a great lesson on how to be flexible and patient when disappointing news comes. Nicole Misencik, our visiting meteorologist, had to cancel her visit today due to professional obligations.

When I told the children they were obviously disappointed, but Renna quickly offered, “Well, Mrs. Bucher, we will just have to give the weather reports!” I loved how yes, they felt upset, but it did not dampen the rest of their day. They quickly moved forward and started playing, and we ended up having a FANTASTIC afternoon!

Nicole and I are already scheduling another time for her to come in and talk with the children, and I know it will be an exciting visit when she comes!