IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Earlier in the week, we went outside and explored the snow.  The students made observations and predictions about how long it would take to melt.  They have also been coming up with theories as to how snow is formed.  They are curious about the differences between snow and rain.  I was excited when the students made connections to our previous work and wanted to measure the density of the water after the snow melted.  We found that the water was more dense than water from the sink and we believe that is due to the dirt that was in the snow.

Today we received some new science materials! We now have four microscopes and a class set of thermometers for our science investigations.  The scientists are very excited to explore the microscopes more closely next week.

Kristien and Ruth are working well together in Math Workshop.

During Math Workshop, we reviewed a game.  (Every Friday is game day). Today we played tic-tac-toe.  To play the game you move paperclips over two numbers and then add the numbers up.  The player then finds their answer on the board.  The goal is to get 3 sets of 2 in a row.

Today, Kristien and Ruth were playing together in Math Workshop.  While the kids are allowed to use a dry erase boards to help with the addition, I challenged them to try mental computation together.  Kristien and Ruth were up for the challenge.  I went over to those two and realized that they were working together to solve each problem.  The two friends were helping one another and doing it so peacefully! One of the reasons we work together so much in Math Workshop is to encourage collaboration.  Today, Kristien and Ruth were a great example of this!

We are coming to an end of our author study that we started last semester!  Over the past weeks the kids have wrote, critiqued, and revised (multiple drafts) their stories that were supposed to have similarities to the author they were studying.  We are now to the publishing phase!  Today, five of our students were able to publish their books.  Check out the covers below.  I know the kids are very excited about this.  I promised them we will be able to send them home in a few weeks after our classroom community is able to share and look through them!

Wyatt and Ruth’s books

William, Andrew, and Tylisha’s books.

Today was such an exciting day because we received another note from Sam, the mouse! He told us how grateful he is that we are going to help him, but he asked us to think abut some other things to create in case is family gets tired of the house.

I cannot begin to tell you how excited the children were about to create not only a mouse house but a Mouse City ! It was so fun how eager they were to create the different places: a mouse library, a mouse park, a mouse police station, a mouse cheese shop, mouse roads/cars.

The children chose a part of the city they wanted to work on so tomorrow they are going to plan with their group, and then we are going to sort the boxes by shape so we know what each group has the option to have.

What a fun way to do a shape study!!

Today was quite the busy day getting everything prepared for our puppet movie! We divided into groups and tackled some jobs-setting up the popcorn, getting the red carpet ready, getting the ticket booth and donations jar table prepared, setting up chairs, and making decorations to hang up!

Last Wednesday, I had a great small group discussion where we were working on our donation jars. While we were working on them, one friend suggested that we need to have someone there to watch the jars so nobody steals the money. I reassured the friends that everyone coming to the show is there to support us and that I did not think anyone would steal our money. They said, “Just to be safe, we should have someone there!” Selah, then offered that Mrs. Clark one of our 1/2 teachers’ husbands was a police officer and he could come! Selah wrote a note to him yesterday asking if he could come and watch over the donations jars. What was great was that he wrote back today and said he would love to come watch the money (in full uniform!) So, I just wanted to let you know that he will be there tomorrow-in complete support of our class’s desire to raise as much money as we can!

The last thing we did was watch our movie. The children sitting in the front two rows with smiles stretched from ear to ear watched so diligently. As soon as it was over, Sarah said, “I want to watch that again.”

Cannot wait for tomorrow…