IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

We have worked on grouping and doubles the past couple of weeks.  Today some of the friends talked about how if 10 +10=20, then 10×2=20.  Then we talked about 10×3= 3 10’s which is 30.  They caught onto this and so by the end they were multiplying by 10’s up to 100!  They were so excited about what they learned that they wanted to chant it down the hallway on our way outside.

Yesterday we talked a bit about the 5 W’s when it comes to summarizing and comprehension.  Today, I gave each kiddo a viewfinder that had a picture of “Who”, “What”, “When”, “Where”, “Why” so that when they are reading their books during the day they can use that viewfinder to help them summarize and comprehend the books.

We also discussed today “stretching” our words out when we are writing.  We did a demonstration where we took our pretend taffy and stretched out a word.  As we stretched it out we said each sound we heard and then we wrote that sound down until we wrote the word.  During Writer’s Workshop, I noticed some friends doing the “taffy” motion showing me that they were stretching out words to write.

Jamari working on his self-portrait.

Jett reading his Writer's Workshop book

As if our week has not been good enough, it got better today!  This morning, Reid noticed a lot of empty containers in our recycling bins.  He asked the question, “Can we make instruments with these?”  So a small group of kids created instruments during our free exploration time.  They were so excited to reuse some of our recyclable materials!

The group forming their band

So at the same time as our lovely band was going on, we had another group writing about angry birds!  Last week, Wyatt started to write about angry birds and asked to hear the sounds on the IPad.  This spurred a group of boys to write about this topic in their writing.  Below is a picture of the group writing their stories and using the IPad to help guide them.

Aidan explains his thinking.

Our class created hundreds chart.

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

One of the things the kids like to do in the morning is read the morning message and count our positive points. It has become a ritual for many friends in our room once they have gotten unpacked and settled in. Today, Aidan did something really special. He counted our positive points, and counted 74. Then, without prompting, he walked right over to our hundreds chart, found the number74 and proceeded to count up to 100. He then announced to me, “Mrs. Argus, we only need 26 more positive points until 100!” I asked him how he discovered his conclusion. He then articulately talked me through his thinking process and how he came to use our hundreds chart. Aidan’s discovery was so special that he then shared it during the sharing portion of our morning meeting. The class brainstormed other ways we could use the hundreds chart to problem solve. What a neat discovery, Aidan!

 

Friends present, "How Bella Lost Her Moo!"

 

For the past couple weeks, some of our friends have been reading a story called How Bella Lost Her Moo. It has lots of different animal parts that are fun to read and the kids decided they each wanted to read a seprate part when we would read in a group. One day, a friend suggested, “We should do this as a play!” The rest of the friends loved the idea and we began to prepare to present it to our class. We made puppets out of paper bags and practiced reciting our lines clearly and with emotion. Today, our friends presented the play to the rest of the class. Everyone was so proud and impressed with our performers! We will have to do more reader’s theater in the future- we have some wonderful actors!

 

 

Tags: arithmetic, capable, collaboration, creativity, curious, image of the child, problem solving

Our recycling project is on a roll!  This week we have been going to classrooms all over the buildings to present and ask for other students to recycle with us.  So far we have a lot of requests for recycling boxes and everyone is saying yes!  (Please see Mrs. Bucher’s post about one of our first presentations.)  I am so proud of the kids and their ability to tackle public speaking with no fear at such an early age!  In addition, we received good news today.  Our paper retriever bin is scheduled to be delivered to our school on Friday or Saturday of this week!  Once it is here feel free to bring paper in from home.  We need everyone’s help to make our environment a safer place!

Isn’t this impressive?!

I promise this is not photo-shopped! Jaiden is actually doing this!

I am continually impressed with the kids’ dedication to our daily yoga.  I have noticed that as we end everyone is calmer and more relaxed.  We are able to start our Math Workshop in a calm tone.  Mrs. Williams and I have noticed how the kids are really grasping different poses.  Mrs. Williams took our class to the next level today.  Check out the pose Jaiden is doing above!  She, like many others, was able to hold this pose for many seconds.  (I tried it myself and it is a hard one!)

On Monday and Tuesday we talked about “Stopping and thinking” about what we are reading when we are reading books.  Today, we discussed the 5 W’s:  Who, What, When, Where, and Why.  We had some pictures to show each word, and then we discussed a little bit about them.  Then I challenged the children to find those in their books while they were reading.  I was so proud of them for finding those “W” words.  By finding those 5 “W” words, that helps with summarizing and comprehension.  Next week we are going to talk in more detail about each “W” word so that the children have a better understanding of what to look for in their books.