IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Katie Jones reads with a student during Reader's Workshop.

Elyse Estridge helps a student with a project.

Amy Gaisser interacts with student at a light table in the studio.

On last Wednesday, the Block A students from the Butler University College of Education began working in our classrooms.  Today they returned to the classrooms for a second full-day of teaching experience at the IPS/Butler University Laboratory School.  In addition to working with individual students and small groups, many of the Block A students have taught lessons and read books aloud to the classes with which they work.  Several Block A students returned to school last Friday (on a day they were not even scheduled to be at our school) to participate in a class celebration with the children in room 104.  So, if your child came home recently and told you he/she has four new teachers, it is true!

For the past few days we have played a game where I show a ten frame card and the children have to say how many dots it shows (what number it is). At first I went really slow so the children could see the card well, and they did a really good job at telling me how many dots they see and why and how they got to that number. Today, we did the same game, but this time I went really fast, and you know what…they did great! With a smaller version of the ten frame cards, we played high card which the children loved playing. In partners, they each placed a card in front of them. Whoever had the highest card won the hand! The children really loved playing the game and they were getting really good at knowing and seeing how many dots were on the cards.

Today we got to the fourth group to work on making their puppets for their shows. Tomorrow we will start looking at puppet books to see if there is anything else we can do to add or enhance our puppets. They are REALLY enjoy this process! Next up after creating the puppets will be working on the background to our puppet shows.

(I tried posting pictures with this post, but it is not allowing me to do so…sorry!)

Wyatt and Christina are very exctied about Mo Willems!

Jaiden loves the Piggy and Elephant books by Mo Willems.

Today we started an author study on Mo Willems in Reader’s Workshop.  The kids have really been drawn to his work as we read them in class.  I decided this might be a great author to study.  Over the next week or so we will be looking at the different techniques Mo Willems uses in his book and what we notice about his writing.  I am sure that stories will come home about this because he is our favorite author so far!

Parents and staff brainstorm ideas about our parent organization

Parents and staff organize ideas for our parent organization

On Thursday, September 15th, parents and staff members met for the first time to begin thinking about what a parent organization at a school like ours can become.  A guiding question for our group is how can a parent organization be meaningful to parents, to staff, to the community, and most importantly to the children?  Bob Price (Lab School parent) facilitated the meeting during which the big ideas that could guide our organization were discussed.  The discussions were thoughtful and everyone in attendance seemed to enjoy the time we spent together.  It was a joy to see that after the meeting had ended, everyone stayed to spent more time together talking about our children and our school.  Our next meeting will take place on Thursday, October 6th at 6:00 PM.  If you could not join us for the first meeting, we hope you can find the time to be with us on the 6th!

Monica paints with strawberry sauce and chocolate sauce.

“Ice cream for sale!!!!”- Zacharyah

“Do you like ice cream in a cone or in a cup?”

Our ice cream celebration was a huge success! What a wonderful learning oppurtunity to see how ice cream is made and discuss all things ice cream this afternoon. This morning, the kids created an ice cream parlor in our classroom and have been talking about selling, creating, and marketing ice cream all day. I wonder where this experience will lead us next…

"The vanilla is out! Do you want chocolate?" - Messi

Ice Cream Bingo