IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today we were greeted by four new Butler friends that are Block A practicum students from Butler University. We loved getting to know Mr. Cohn, Miss Hoffman, Miss Goetz, and Miss Goodwin. These students will be with us each Monday for the rest of the semester, learning with us! We are so glad to have them.

We continued our exploration in measurement today during problem solving. Towards the end of last week, we were given a problem that said we needed to figure out how big a garden bed would be if it was as long as our table and as wide as our calendar. This led us to try to figure out the best way to measure these things and also explore the concepts of “long” and “wide”. We learned as we worked through the problem and when a friend discovered something we thought would be helpful to others, we added it to our measurement terms chart. We eventually discovered the term “perimeter” and learned that in order to all get an exact measurement, we would need to work with standard measurement- in our case, rulers. The kids have enjoyed experimenting with and learning the best ways to measure accurately with rulers. Today, the kids were challenged with another measurement/perimeter story problem. We ended up having a big debate about the difference between width and length and learned we may need to change or add to our anchor chart to clarify what these terms mean. The kids were disappointed to learn that we had to end problem solving for the day before we had all officially solved the problem but were excited to know that we would continue working on the same one tomorrow. It was a big day for us!

Tags: arithmetic, Butler, capable, collaboration, measurement

We had quite the day today! This morning, the kids were challenged to think deeply about our morning question: Are we more the same or more different? It turns out, our class was split almost 50/50 on the issue. We talked, debated, and listened to one another’s opinions regarding the question- a great conversation. Because we were so split on the issue, we decided to email another class to ask their opinion. On the big screen, we constructed an email to a class at Guion Creek Elementary with a familiar face in it- Miss Schmidt. For those of you who were with us last year, Miss Schmidt was our beloved student teacher who was in our room for almost the entire year. We introduced ourselves to her class and asked what their thoughts were on the question. To our delight, Miss Schmidt’s class responded back to us during the day and had their own question for us too. They said,

“Dear Mrs. Argus’ Class,

We look different, we’re different colors and some of us are girls and some of us are boys.  But we’re the same because we’re all human and even though we’re made different we’re still the same.

We go to Guion Creek Elementary School.  Do you know about mail?

Love,

Miss Schmidt’s Class”

Their email led us to a conversation about mail and how we could continue to communicate with this class. I am hoping this communication will help fuel our conversations on similarities and differences, community, and respect for humankind. We were able to email them back and told them what we knew about mail. We asked if it would be if we mailed them something too. We are looking forward to an email tomorrow from them!

Today during Math Workshop, we read the classic story, How Big is a Foot? about standard and nonstandard measurement. We had fun dramatizing the story as it happened and then tried out the king’s strategy from the story- measuring items around our room with a cutout of our actual feet. Upon experimenting with the feet, the kids started to notice differences between their measurements because of the size of their feet. How interesting…

Tags: arithmetic, collaboration, community, curious, email, friendship, letters, mail

This morning, the kids were greeted by something pretty exciting in our room- a kitchen set! Included with the kitchen were real fruits and vegetables and grains. We also included measuring cups and spoons, for pretend mixing. The kids were ecstatic over the addition to our room. Friends experimented and played with our various measurement tools and also did something we didn’t expect- they began writing! Various friends took clip boards and pieces of paper and began taking friends’ orders for meals! Then they would hurry back to the kitchen area and ask for the ‘cook’ to create the meal. The kitchen has unexpectedly become a wonderful literacy provocation as well as a measurement and math provocation.

Tags: arithmetic, garden, project, writing

The other day, Maria and her mom brought in some extra Day Lilies to share with our school. Today, we learned that Day Lilies are perennials which means they will grow back year after year! We learned how to split the Day Lilies and about a group of friends went outside to plant them by our William A. Bell memorial. It looks great!

While we were out there, we separated the Day Lilies into 10 plants. Our friends started talking math as we lined up the perennials…

Lets see, we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten! Maria

Hmmm five and five. We need to do five on each side. Regan

How do you know five and five? Mrs. Argus

Because five plus five equals ten! Five on each side! Messi

Perfect!

Tags: arithmetic, capable, garden, problem solving, project

Friends work togther to build half meter long cube sticks.

I have some awesome learning to share from Wednesday. Wednesday morning, our class resumed our conversation on how to figure out how big our T-Rex was in real life. Several friends showed us how they had figured out how to mark a half meter by creating sticks of unifix cubes that were 50 cm long. We knew it was important to have this measurement, but we weren’t sure what to do next. We decided to take a closer look at our picture we were working from with the scale. We re-read that 1cm = .5 meters. Lucas asked, “Well how many centimeters is the picture?” Beatrice and Ayden knew, “21!” Then Lucas suggested, “Let’s make 21 sticks and lay them out. That’s how big!” Friends agreed that this would be the best way to represent our T- Rex. They demonstrated teamwork as the entire class enthusiastically began building sticks of equal lengths. Friends problem solved on how to check to make sure the sticks were equal. Some chose to re-measure them with a ruler, some compared them to others, some insisted on counting them each time and made sure they each had the same amount. When we finally had 21, we had a decesion to make. “What now?”

Teamwork!

Addie looks down the row, its getting longer!

Going off of Lucas’ suggestion, friends began taking turns connecting each of the pieces to create one, long line. The kids were paitient as we fixed breaks and troubleshooted directional problems. The cubes began to extend beyond our carpet area, past our word wall, and beyond. Miles enthusiastically predicted, “Its going to go out of the room! Its so big!” And Miles was right, our T-Rex ended up being SO big that it extended out of the classroom. WOW! After admiring our work in the morning, we decided to switch out the breakable cubes for something a little more permanent- tape. We laid down tape in place of the cubes to mark how long the T-Rex was and had fun decorating it with T-Rex-es and dinosaur words. Make sure you come check it out next time you are at school!

Longer!

BreAnna adds a half meter to the dinosaur.

Right out the door!

Tags: arithmetic, capable, collaboration, problem solving, project