IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today as the children walked in many noticed a big map of the United States on our wall. This facilitated some great conversations between the children. Some friends noticed that there was a paper sun cut out and taped onto a popsicle stick and located to the right of the map. During free choice, friends added that we needed other weather so friends got to work making clouds, rain, wind, lightning, and fog! I am excited to see where the children go with this idea of maps and weather!

During Readers Workshop and Story Workshop we began a discussion about beginning, middle, and end of stories. During Story Workshop we talked about how people have a top, middle, and bottom (which equates to beginning, middle, and end) so a few friends drew a top, middle, and bottom of a person and then we fit them together like a puzzle. It was a great demonstration to show beginning, middle, and end which will help them with comprehension as well as creating stories with beginning, middle, and end.

Today was a big day for books in room 107, for many different reasons!

First off, as many of you might have heard from your children, we are beginning the early stages of a project. Right now, it seems that we will be diving into a project about sharks, however, one of the most exciting things about projects is that they can change course at a moments notice, so stay tuned!

This morning, when the kids arrived at school, our classroom library was filled with brand new books about sharks. One of our books baskets is dedicated to shark books, as well as our book display shelf. Many students chose to spend their Morning Choice time exploring text and pictures about sharks.

Students look at shark books during Morning Choice time.

Later, after Readers Workshop, we took our first trip to the school library. Students learned how to take care of books. They also got to check out their very own book for the week. Last year, school library books stayed at school. However, this year, students are allowed to take their library books home to read with their families. All library books must be returned by the following Monday so that students can check out a new book. If a child doesn’t bring their library book back to school, they will have to wait to get a new library book until their previous book is returned.

I did not send our library books home today. I plan on having a classroom discussion tomorrow and sending them home at the end of the day on Tuesday. If students bring their library book back to school before the following Monday, they will have opportunities to go to the library on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for an additional library check out time. On these days, I will be sending small groups of students down to return their books (if they have read them and brought them back to school) and check out a new book. This will be optional, and there might be some days when we don’t make it to the “open library” time. However, it will always be our goal!

Lastly, we have started using books as a new material in our Story Workshop. At the beginning of the year, students were expected to create a story with materials. Now, students create a story with materials and then are expected to put their story in a book. The books provide a way for us to keep stories so that we can share them for longer. They create more accountability for the students and their story telling. They also give us an opportunity to work on letter work and writing of words. Students are excited about this latest addition to Story Workshop!

Madeline works on the illustrations of her book about her family.

After finishing his story using materials, Spencer transfers his story to a book.

Miss Jeffrey and I have really been impressed by how the children have embraced partner work in our classroom community. Whether it is partner reading or playing math games with a partner, the children have been playing fairly, respectfully, and most of all having fun!!

Today we made a poster that expresses what we need to do when we are doing partner work, and I was really impressed with the comments that children made!

A beautiful teachable moment came today in such a natural way during Story Workshop. After I read our story to begin Story Workshop and reviewed our new structure for Story Workshop, many of the children wanted to make final drafts of their stories they started this week. We were not anticipating so many of the students wanting to continue to work on their story so it was a great surprise to see so many students interested in it. I gathered Danielle, Noah, Malachi, and Ashu (four friends who wanted to do a final draft) and we did something called a Peer Critique. We looked at each friend’s first draft as well as their photograph from their planning session. While looking at each friend’s work, the children engaged in a discussion without much prompting from me discussing what they liked about each friend’s work as well as any questions they had. It was such a beautiful moment because they were editing\revising each other’s work but in such a gentle and respectful way! They only had a couple of minutes to work on their final drafts so the bulk of it will be next week, but I was so proud of their discussion as well as how respectful they were to each other!

I am really looking forward to doing this more so we can grow as critical thinkers!!

This week, we have been working to choose our own just right books. This means that students are able to look through books from our classroom library to select some for their personal bag. We have been working hard to learn what a book will look and feel like when it is just right for us and here are the criteria we are using:

-you know most of the words
-you understand most of the words
-you are interested in the topic

If a book meets all three of these, it is just right! Encourage your child to read books that are just right for them at home! The books I sent home last week are just right for your child too! A new reading log and books will come home again starting Monday- this short week was made shorter because I was at a conference on Tuesday!

Abigail reading a just right book.