IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

As we were working on our working on our morning message today, some friends asked some questions that lead into a discussion about letters. We work with and explore letters everyday in our classroom. However, students verbalized a new observation today, that no one had ever shared with the whole class…”Some uppercase letters look the same as their lowercase letter, and some look different.” I thought this was a great observation, excited that it was a conclusion they came to on their own! I offered up a continued observation of letters as a free choice, and by the end of the day, students had sorted out all the letters that look the same in upper and lower case form, and all that look different!

"Different" letters

Aaliyah and Leah sort the "same" letters during free choice time.

Other excitement today, revolved around our earthquake drill…

Paiton, Jo'Vyon, and DayTwon demonstrate how to properly protect yourself in the rare case of an earthquake.

And lastly, we started a new scientific exploration today, considering how observation can help us identify things. Students were given a notecard and a toy car. They were asked to draw their car. Then after a minute of drawing. I collected their cars, mixed them all up, and redistributed them. Students had to use their observations from their drawings to explain how they knew that their new car was not the same as their original.

Jermaine, Paiton, Jamaria, Zakeyah, Aaliyah, and William observe their 2nd round of cars.

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

Today when Mr. Nored walked in a lot of friends noticed his lip (he injured it at the last basketball game).  They asked what happened, and Mr. Nored said in such a polite manner that he would tell what happened during our share time.  During share time then after our friends took their turns, Mr. Nored shared his story.  I do not know if it was because it was him, or if it was because it was a story of trauma, but the children were such great listeners and so curious about how he was doing and if it hurt.  I was proud of them for being such a captivated audience!

Today we had a clock hunt where the children had to search for six different clocks around the room, and then put down what time on a cooresponding table.  The children really were excited about this clock hunt and did a really nice job telling the time around them.

So, we completed day 2 of biography writing today, and we had DeOnna and Saa share what they have worked on so far!  There were table of contents, thoughtful responses that they created from their interviews they did last week, and illustrations to showcase who they were writing about.  I am just so excited to continue to work on these and see what all of the children create to highlight their friends’ lives!

Heaven transferring her interview questions to her biography about Jamari!

Mr. Nored sharing his story of his fall on Saturday.

Madeline P. sharing her text to text connections she found in two of her reader's workshop books! She did a wonderful sharing her connections!