IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Ruth and the one hundred squares

During arrival each morning, the children are given several options for what to do once they come in. These options change each week and are chosen to help facilitate conversation and engagement between students. This week, the choices are building with the unifix cubes, creating designs on the geo boards, or looking at the books in our library. The kids have quickly chosen the geo boards as a favorite activity and love creating designs on them. This morning, Ruth showed me what looked like, “Like a million squares!” I asked her, “Are there really a million?” She wasn’t sure. I asked her how we could find out how many. She started counting to see how many squares went across the top. “This is going to take a long time!” She said. I suggested if we know there are ten in each row, we could count by tens to figure out our grand total. Ruth counted, “Ten, twenty, thirty, fourty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred! There’s one hundred!” All of our friends could hardly believe there were actually one hundred squares!

Aidan and Christian looking good during explore time

During our first week of school, our class worked together to create a list of classroom agreements. This week, we are revisiting these agreements and focusing on one agreement each day. Our four classroom agreements are:

1. We will treat people with care.

2. We will listen quietly when people are talking.

3. We will stay together.

4. We will be gentle with our classroom tools.

Today, we focused on agreement number two, with each child making a picture of a time when they listened quietly. We will compile these pictures to make a “Miss Estridge’s class listens quietly when people are talking,” book. Please feel free to ask your child about our classroom agreements at home.

Today, we spoke about respect and what we needed to do in class in order to give and receive respect.  The children came up with some ideas:

1.  Keep our hands and body to ourselves.

2.  Listen when Mrs. Bucher or another friend is talking.

3.  Use nice words.

We will be making a class book on respect. We also will have a respect jar, and as I see friends respecting each other or myself, I will put a marble in.  When we get a full jar, we will go to the big playground!  I think the children will LOVE that!!

Makayla, Mekhi, and Heaven rolling the dice and throwing the matching number of bean bags in the basket!

Jonah, Isaac, and Jason posing for a picture during free choice!

Today we had a great start to week two!  As a class, we talked about what we should be doing in our room.  It was a wonderful to hear all of the kids share their ideas on how we can work together.  Here is what we came up with:

1. Raise your hand

2. Listen when other friends are talking

3. Follow directions

4. Be kind to your friends

5. Keep your body to yourself

Over the next few days we will be talking about each one of these.  In addition, we will be writing class books that we can read over and over again to help us!  It is so great to see the kids take ownership over the room!