IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today we learned a new strategy to help us when reading the first sound/letter. It is called READY ROOSTER! Roosters get the day going. Ready Rooster gets your mouth ready for the first sound/letter of a word. I showed the word “beginning” to the friends and asked them to get ready rooster. You should have seen our 23 friends “pecking” their heads a little and getting their mouths ready to say that beginning “b” sound!!

We also did a class walk of beginning, middle, and end today. I read the book Swimmy to our friends, and then I read it again but this time they either had to go to the beginning of our room, the middle of our room, or the end of the room based on what part of the book I was reading. They loved listening and then getting to the part of the room quick! It was a fun way to demonstrate beginning, middle, and end!

Today is the day we finally figured out how long the whale shark is!

Thanks to the help of a couple friends who brought in measuring tapes today, we were able to measure the length of our pipe line. At the end of free choice time, all the students had a seat by our string of pipes, next to the wall. We investigated the measuring tapes and found out where the inches lines and feet lines were. After we had an understanding of our tool, we began to measure. Unfortunately, our measuring tape ran out when it reached twelve feet. Not to worry though, because we had a second twelve foot measuring tape. When this one ended, I asked the students how far we had measured so far if we had gone twelve feet and then twelve more feet. One student informed me that we had measured twenty-four feet of our pipe line. At the point, we were out of measuring tapes, so I asked the students how they thought we should measure the remaining pipes. Spencer told me that we could use the ruler now, so I got out a basket of rulers and laid them end to end until we reached the end of string of pipes. The students had been counting with me and we found out that our string of pipes was only thirty-one feet long. We continued to lay the rulers down, counting from thirty-one up to forty. By the time we reached forty feet, our rulers had made there way into the hallway and the kids were ecstatic! Who knew a whale shark could be so long! The students helped me lay duct tape down next to our pipes and rulers so that we could have a more permanent representation of our whale shark’s length. Needless to say, the kids were excited to have finally reached our goal of measuring the whale shark. There excitement spilled over into all the other ideas they had of what we should do next with our shark project! Now we’re thinking we need to begin some shark journals for all of our research, and I was told I need to contact a shark specialist to come and talk to us about sharks too! I’ll keep you updated! It’s sure to be great!

Our whole class sits along the length of our whale shark. Tyrese is standing at the very end to show how far the tape goes!

We have been taking yoga since the beginning of the year! So far, we have learned the sun salutation, a series of connected poses, along with breathing and meditation techniques. Each day we have yoga time with Mrs. Williams, we get better at the vinyasa (flow) of the poses and the meditation time! Practicing yoga helps us to calm our mind and bodies and enables us to have a successful end to our day. Ask your child to show you their favorite yoga pose. For a lot of students this may be guard dog or playful dog!

Students doing child’s pose.

Students doing downward dog.

Today, we took our observational drawings and created wire sculptures from them. We practiced paying close attention to detail in our wire, just as we did in our drawings. The results are incredible! The conversations we had were also very neat as the kids discussed the carious body parts of the dinosaurs.

Conversation 1

What was this part for? Hmm, maybe he whacked predators with it! Regan

This part? Its his sail. I think its just to like show the predators that you have to be quiet and he shakes it and all the other dinosaurs be quiet. Sascha

If I was a T-Rex, I would be scared of it! Regan

Conversation 2

I can turn this into a big head! Its the same as the dinosaur! Ayden

I made his head big too. I made this big head and this pink stuff so he will be protected. I made twisties so he has bones. Beatrice

This will be his big crest. I think it was to bump away other predators and break their bones. Dylan

His head had like rocks on it so he could bump into other dinosaurs. Like his friends. Beatrice

They’re not rocks, just bumpy things! Dylan

Here’s his crest! Hutton

I’m trying to make his body just like my picture! Jackson

Tags: creativity, dinosaurs, project, sculpture