IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today in Reader’s Workshop I told the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  We discussed how Goldilocks kept trying to find things that were “just right” for her.  We realized that as readers, we also need to find “just right” books.  The students had so many great strategies for figuring out if their books were “just right” for them: “You can look at the title and see if you think you’ll like it” “You can see how many words are hard for you. . . 4 or 5 means its too hard” “You can make sure that you are understanding your story.” After we read David shared that he found a just right book in his book bag because he understood it and there were only a few tricky words.  I am so proud of our progress in Reader’s Workshop.  The students are already reading independently for about 15-20 minutes.  We will keep working on finding “just right” books all week!

Today was our first day using math journals this year, and they were a big hit!

Thus far this year, we have been exploring different math materials. We have been figuring how to use math materials properly, how to put them away appropriately, and how we can use them to solve different math problems. The first week, we learned about unifix cubes, bears, and links.

Last week students learned how to draw pictures to help them solve a problem. They were exposed to a number line during share time. They explored something called a ten frame, which is a tool that helps us understand the number 10 better and all the different ways it can be made.

Olivia, Jace, Ellie, John, and Abel represent different numbers on our life size 10 frame.

Yesterday we all explored a tool called a 20 Bead String together. We each got to make our own, and then today, students had the option of working with their 20 bead string with a partner during morning choices.

During math workshop today, I read a story problem I had written on big paper. A friend decided we should use bears to solve the problem, so Faith came up and solved the problem for us using the bears. Then I talked about “making our thinking and problem solving visible.” I told the students that I wanted to be able to know what their brains were thinking when they solved the problem, so together we drew a picture of our problem solving process on the big paper, right underneath the question.

Then it was the kids turn. I told them that they were going to get to solve their very own math problem by themselves in their very own math journal. This morning, I had cut out and glued a story problem into each child’s math journal.  Together, we read the story problem. After we had read the problem a couple times, I handed each child their journal. They were able to take their journal, pick one of the math materials we have learned how to use, grab a pen/pencil, and then find a “stuck like glue” spot to solve their problem and show their thinking in their math journal.

After students had worked on the problem independently, they put away their materials. Then we listened to Jackson share how he had solved today’s problem with links.

I look forward to more mathematical thinking and problem solving in the future!

*Material request: In addition to solving problems in our math journal, we are going to begin playing math games next week. A material we will need for one of our games is egg cartons. If you have any, could you please send them into school? Thank you!

Sharing is such an important part of our day. With each workshop we end with a sharing time. During this time the children are the experts sharing what they have worked on during the independent time. What I love about the sharing time is that the children are teaching each other. They are sharing what strategies they worked on or sharing how proud they are with themselves with others.

The three pictures I am sharing today are three examples of what sharing looks like. Joe is sharing a book that he read today during Readers Workshop! He was so proud of himself and we wanted to share that with others. While reading, you could see Joe just beaming with confidence which is what we want from our readers!

Heaven worked on creating a story with blocks with Selah, Alejandra, and Jamari. While I was conferencing with her, I noticed that she was telling me all about what they had built but it was not in a story format. It was “This is my house. This is the road. This is the car. etc.” So, I challenged Heaven to tell a story using those ideas. When it was time to share, Heaven did an amazing job telling the story. She started with “Once upon a time…”and told a great story!

Alejandra, I noticed, did something that we had not talked about before during Math Workshop today. She opened her notebook and she circled the numbers in the number story so that it would be easier to remember what the numbers were. I thought that was a brilliant idea (I was going to introduce that strategy next week) and it came from Alejandra! The children really complimented her on that strategy so I am interested to see if anyone does it tomorrow.

So…when I went into school this morning our dear friend Crystal Speeder was not doing very well so I decided to let it go because I did not want to make it worse. A few friends asked about Crystal Speeder, but the newness of today kept their minds off of our friend. Fare thee well Crystal Speeder!

We welcomed three new friends in our class today! Noah, Sarah, and Danielle did such an amazing job just jumping in and joining us in the various parts of the day! I was so proud of them, and I was so proud of our friends for being so supportive and welcoming to our new friends!

Today we began something new we will do each day. Sometimes it takes a while at the bathroom in the morning so we have begun doing our Morning Message in the hallway. I already wrote the message today, and it included three words that will be on our Word Wall: is, you, we The children wrote in one of the journals you provided. It is called the Morning Message. Not all of the children got it all done, but we will do this every morning so we will see a progression from each child with their writing! They seemed to really enjoy this time and it helped make the bathroom time go quicker.

Today we also introduced math notebooks. These math notebooks will be something the children will do four days out of the week. Today I put a simple addition problem because I wanted the children to get the procedures of how we are going to do it each day. We have been talking about the various tools we can use to help us solve problems so the math notebook is somewhere where we can write down the strategy we used to solve the problem. We will begin differentiating the problems once we get the procedures down (which will be soon because the children did awesome today!!) I look forward to showing you the progress of each child with their problem solving!