IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

I came back to a very active class today.  There were so many things to share I could not pick one!  Here are a short collection of stories from our day.

Check out our grass!!

This morning, as the kids filtered into our classroom I was greeted by, “Mrs. Clark!  Did you see our grass??!!  It’s growing out of the gloves!!”  The kids were so excited to see what was happening.  It was the chatter in the classroom all day.

Olivia and Sophia starting on their biographies

I felt as if this whole day was really exciting because when we got to Writer’s Workshop the kids could not wait to write their biographies.  They are working with the same partner they interviewed last week and today they had a chance to actually start working on their books.  It was so great to see them use their resource (interview) to help them write.

Dorothy is on the "Clock Hunt."

During Math Workshop today we went on a “clock hunt.”  The kids had to go around the room and read multiple different clocks.  While it was a fun activity for them, it was also very informative for me.  I was impressed to see how well the kids are grasping the concept of telling time.

Our new daily agenda.

As we continue our study of clocks and telling time, we have decided to change something in our room- our daily agenda. We had an old daily agenda in our room, but it was not something we referred to often after the beginning of the year and the kids did not have much interest in it. Yesterday morning, a handful of friends helped me take down the old agenda and begin a new one. Our experiences at the lab school and in years at previous schools have shown us that if the kids have a part in creating something, they are far more likely to use and refer to it than if it is store bought or teacher created. The children helped me think of each part of our day in sequential order, such as morning meeting, writer’s workshop, lunch, math workshop etc. We then wrote them on strips of paper and added them to our new agenda board. Then, more friends helped illustrate pictures of each activity. During morning meeting, friends noticed something else that was new to the agenda- some clocks! Several drawings of clocks were added to different parts of the day to indicate when each part begins (relatively). After making these changes, Miss Schmidt and I noticed all day friends were referring to the agenda and checking the time. Success!

Tags: arithmetic, collaboration, time

I was not at school today because I was out with a cold so I cannot blog about our wonderful learning 🙁  BUT I did hear from Mrs. Williams and she said that the kids had a wonderful day and are hard at work on their interviews for their biographies.  (More will come tomorrow when I’m back!)

If you are looking for a way to help our class please see our wish list below.  Donations are always welcome! Thank you in advance 🙂

**Hand Sanitizer

**Snacks (goldfish, pretzels, graham crackers, etc.)

**Masking Tape

**Blue Painters Tape

Olivia and Sophia are interviewing each other!

In Writer’s Workshop we have been talking a lot about biographies.  Our next step in this is that the kids are going to write biographies about each other.  Yesterday we talked about what was important to know and came up with questions to ask.  Today the kids got a chance to interview their partners.  It was wonderful to see them sharing their own personal stories with others!

Kristien and Reid are really into their interviews!

Our recycling poster

We are on a roll with our recycling project!  This past week a small group has been working with Mrs. Grotjan and Miss Robison on a recycling poster.  After collecting the recycling over the past month, the kids decided that we needed some recycling posters to remind all the friends at our school to recycle.  Today we presented it the the entire class and figured out where we wanted to hang the multiple copies of the posters.

After this conversation I asked the class, “What are our next steps?”  They decided that they still indeed wanted to write the mayor about recycling.  So this afternoon I met with a small group of friends to brainstorm ideas.  We figured out that we need to write Mr. Ballard about recycling and saving our planet by saving our trees.  Keep checking back to see where this portion goes!

Finally, as it is the first of the month please send in snacks.  We are running very low.  Thank you!!!

Today our new Butler friends started in our classroom.  Similar to last semester, they will be with us once a week for the entire day.  So each Wednesday we will have 5 extra teachers to help out in our classroom.  The kids were so excited today to have even more friends!  Our five friends are, Miss Weist, Miss Hunter, Miss Prop, Miss Kirby, and Miss Moheban.  While the kids are excited, I think I am even more excited to have more help in our wonderful class.

Miss Moheban is reading with BreAnna and Dorothy.

Miss Prop reads with Nytaiya and Kristien.

Miss Weist reads with Tylisha and CJ.

Miss Kirby reads with Raki.

Miss Hunter reads with Max and David.