IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today we did some fun activities that helped us work on beginning, middle, and end. During Reader’s Workshop we focused on locating the beginning sound of the words we were reading. We gave each child a leveled reader. Then they took a marker and circled or highlighted the beginning sound of each word in their book. We were really impressed by how engaged the children were and how proud they were of themselves as they located the first sounds!

During Story Workshop we divided the class into 7 groups of 3 or 4. We then gave each friend in the group a puzzle piece. The children then had to make up a story focusing on the beginning, middle, and end. As they came up with the beginning, they put that in the beginning puzzle piece, as they came up with the middle, they put that in the middle piece, and so on. After we were finished for the day, some of the groups shared their stories and it was wonderful seeing how creative they were as well as collaborative!!

This morning some friends painted weather, and oh my they were just beautiful!! I loved seeing how focused and intentional they were being with their paintings!

The weather reports have begun! Today Israel shared his excitement to have a camera and record weather reports with his friends. During Free Choice/Project Work time, some friends worked together to tell the weather report. By the end one friend was doing the Morning Show, one friend was doing the Lunch Show, and one friend was doing the Evening Show. They all focused on showing the weather for today!!

Today our friends from Butler joined us! It was great to see them connecting with the students and working with many of them throughout the day.  During Story Workshop we read a book called What Do Authors Do? The students were able to connect what we do in Story Workshop to everything we read about authors in the book.  When I asked raise your hand if you are an author. . .every hand went up.  I am so glad to see that the students feel like they are authors.  We will be celebrating some of their stories at the end of the week and then we will be moving into a unit of study.

Kaitlyn shares how her clay has helped her tell her story with Miss Plumlee.

Emily shares how clay and watercolor have helped her tell her story with Miss Rimmel.

During math workshop we learned something new that mathematicians do: work with a partner to solve a problem! Students worked together today and I heard lots of math conversations happening.  Chairo said, “I think we should add the numbers together.” His partner, Cameron, replied “I think we are trying to find out the amount in between the numbers.”  I could see their thinking growing and changing as they worked with their partners.  We will continue to practice this process and I know that I will see a lot more math discoveries as we continue!

Sydney and De’Onna work together on their math problem.

Kaitlyn and David discuss which strategy they think will be best.

Today was a fun day because we went to meet the chickens at our school! The children were very excited to meet them and they did such a nice job respecting them and their environment!! We talked about how we need to use a quiet voice around them and we should not put our hands on the coop. Our chickens names are Thelma, Louise,and Dottie. We all looked inside to see if there were any eggs in the coop but there were not! Luckily, it will be our week soon to take care of the chickens so we will be able to collect the eggs.

Thank you to all who came to Family Night tonight-what a great turnout!! We had such a great time, and we look forward to the next Family Night!

This week we are responsible for taking care of our school chickens.  Today, we went out as a class for the first time.  We give them water, food, and checked for eggs!  We collected 4 eggs.  Check out the pictures below to see some of our friends taking care of the chickens.

We have added a new component to math instruction! In addition to problem solving, students now are engaging in activities that help them develop number sense at their level. For some students, this means sorting numbers from letters, working to fill in missing numbers on a hundreds chart, or ordering a number set from least to greatest. Students are working in groups of four or five with other children participating in the same activity.

Math notebooks were reintroduced today, so we now are working in them for part of math workshop. Students are working with different levels depending on their skills, so they have a variety of number sets to pick from. Once they are finished, they are either working the same problem using different numbers or working on number formation activities.

Don’t forget about family night tomorrow from 6-7. Looking forward to seeing many of you then!