IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Yesterday, the kids were excited to jump right back into creating our large, 24 foot airplane. Many friends helped one another construct walls for the plane’s fuselage, the body, out of cardboard and taped them together. We then moved to covering the remaining exposed roof of the plane on the cockpit and the tail. Lucas, Hutton, Monica, and Ruth worked together to make sure that before they fixed it on the top, the roof piece was centered and visually appealing. They enjoyed taking turns standing back and letting friends know whether to move the piece more to the left, more to the right, towards Mrs. Argus, and so on.  Once we had the pieces covering the cockpit and tail, Hutton said, “So now what?” Messi heard our conversation and excitedly shouted, “Our airplane needs wings!”

Friends measure the length of the box.

 More children joined us as we started our discussion on wings. Would they be small or large? Would they need to stand out straight from the plane or should they hang down? Where on the plane would we place the wings?   Ruth suggested we look at some of the different sizes of collected boxes in our room. After looking at different shapes and sizes, we decided on two large boxes, because we wanted large wings. I asked, “How do we know which is longer?” Monica suggested we measure them on the class number line on the floor. Messi and Hutton carried the first box over to the number line. Ruth explained that the box needed to start by where it said 1 so we knew how long the box was. After measuring both large boxes in this way, we discovered that they were both exactly the same size! We decided on using the nicer looking one that had less wear and tear.  Lucas came up with the idea to draw where the adult could cut out for the wings. He carefully drew the wing with a pencil, and then traced it over with a black marker. After the wing was cut out, we tested to see how it looked on the plane. The kids were pleased, and so was I! A great fit. Tomorrow, we will see if we can creat a symmetrical wing to match our first.

Very carefully drawing where the wing should be cut out.

Tags: arithmetic, capable, project

Kristien & Teramondis are reading from their book bags with Mr. Ward.

It was a very exciting day back!   We started the day knowing that there would be a surprise in Reader’s Workshop.  (I had put this in our morning message so there was excitement from 9:00 on.)  As we are now into the swing of things, the kids are reading books that are high interest AND books that are at their level.  To make sure each child gets what they need we have introduced the idea of book bags into Reader’s Workshop.  It was the big surprise of the morning!  The kids were very excited as each one of them got a gallon ziploc bag full of books that were just for them.  How special is that?!  The bags have about 6 books in them and the books will be changed weekly.  In addition, the bags will actually change into canvas bags in a few weeks.  The kids are going to have the opportunity to decorate a piece of fabric and we will then sew it on their bags to personalize them.  We will start this tomorrow. 

Kaylee and David picked Cover All as their math game!

 

BreAnna and Max picked Go Forward, Move Back as their math game!

As if one surprise is not enough, we had another in Math Workshop!  Over the past few weeks we have been playing different math games to work on our number sense.  Well today instead of me picking the game, the kids had an option of 5 different ones we have played in the past!  They were so excited to choose their own I got CHEERS when they found out what was going to happen.

As with all of the areas, the kids are really getting into Math Workshop.  We did not have Math Workshop earlier this week because of our recycling project work and I had many disappointed friends.  I got a lot of sad faces over it.  I can honestly say that this is one of my favorite parts of the day.  It is great to see the kids engaged in their math notebooks and working together with others as they play a math game.  Today, as the kids solved their math problem, I took a few pictures so you can see them at work!  Our math time typically goes something like this: we read the problem in our journal together and then they are sent off to work as we float around to help and assist.  After the work time we share our findings and talk about the different way people solved their problems.  Finally, we end this block of time with some type of math game.  For example, we have been talking about number lines this week so we revisited a game called “Bunny Hop” to see how a number line can be used in life. 

BreAnna is hard at work in her journal!

 

Max and Kaylee are working on their journals as they relax on the carpet.

 

Selah and Sophia are working together to solve their problems!

The kids listen to a story by one of their favorite authors: David Shannon. It was read by our librarian, Mrs. Dennis.

 We had a very exciting first adventure today!  We made our first visit to the library. 🙂  Mrs. Dennis, our school librarian read a book from one of our FAVORITE authors, David Shannon.  The kids were so excited because it was one that we had not read yet.   I can honestly say David Gets In Trouble was a hit!  We will continue going to the library weekly on Wednesdays, but by request of Mrs. Dennis the library books are going to stay at school.  The kids have many times during the day that they are able to read them and many have taken advantage of this already!