IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

As I sit in the room watching Miss Jeffrey teach throughout the day, I am able to see things that I would not otherwise see. For example, during Free Choice I noticed after Makayla and Danielle worked with Miss Jeffrey on making puppets, they walked quietly over to their own space and started playing Build-A-Man (formally known as Hang Man). They were having the best time and were so present with each other. I loved seeing this friendship develop.

I also noticed that Isaac and Jett became very interested in helping create the set for the puppet show. They collaborated so much on making the cafeteria tables that were made stay up. They also were so engaged and having such a fun time working together on a common goal.

One last observation I wanted to talk about was a class collaboration that happened during morning meeting. Niall chose the greeting and game for the day because he was showing so much engagement during the previous day. He chose 20 Questions for the game. While he sat in the middle of the circle, friends raised their hands quietly and tried to guess what Niall was thinking. They worked together asking questions that narrowed down the subject until Ashu said “Is it a crocodile?” “Nope, but you are close,” Niall responded. Then, Malachi shot his hand up in the sky and asked, “Is it an alligator?” Niall smiled and returned to the circle. The way they collaborated was beautiful and fun!

This week during reader’s workshop, we have been learning what it means to compare and contrast two books. On Monday, we read the story Cinderella and followed it with the funny spin off story Chickenrella! Students noticed a lot that the stories had in common, as well as things that were different about the two stories. We had a conversation about the importance of finding similarities and differences in stories and students applied this new skill to their independent reading!

Today, we read the story The Gingerbread Man and The Stinky Cheese Man. We created a concept map that visually showed how these stories compared and in what ways they are different. I was amazing by some of the noticing that students made. Tomorrow, we will create a different kind of map that compares the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty and the story What Really Happened to Humpty?

Today, we continued to discover new genres of music. We practiced moving our bodies to bluegrass and classical music! This afternoon, I played one of the kids’ favorite genres thus far- polka- and gave them a challenge. Close your eyes and think of a story that matches the music. The stories were incredible. Dancing bears, magic holes, donkeys on mountains- the works! Friends were then encouraged to tell those stories during Story Workshop, while more polka music played. Its incredible how music affects our creativity. We are excited to try this again tomorrow, except with a new genre… What types of stories will we get then?

Tags: creativity, project, story telling, story workshop, writing

Every morning during morning meeting, friends are invited to shake hands with one another. Recently, we have been discussing the importance of making eye contact while doing this. Today, we had a conversation about other times when making eye contact could be important, such as share time. Friends even came up with reasons why making eye contact is important. They are as follows:

So you feel respected.

So they know you’re taking them seriously.

So they know you’re listening.

So they know you’re their friend.

Tags: collaboration, community

Today we began a conversation about time in math workshop. It was a very engaging discussion because the children knew a lot about the concept of time (there are numbers 1-12 on the clock, there is PM and AM on the clock, there is a minute hand, etc.), and they also were very sure that the day starts at 1 o’clock, “when a little crack of light shows up.” I loved how enthusiastic they were and the discourse that was being displayed to tell their reasons why the day started at 1. The bulk of math workshop was discussion today, and I just loved hearing their knowledge about time and loved hearing their observations about clocks.

The whole week we are going to study time focusing on the hour hand and being able to tell the time by looking at the face of the clock. We are also going to focus on problems similar, “It is 2 P.M. three hours later it is what time. Show me on a clock what the time is three hours later.”