IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Before you start reading the blog, I want to apologize for the length of this entry.  I just kept typing and kept typing.  🙂

We had an interesting discussion today.  So, since the beginning of school there has always been a desire from the children to be the line leaders (one for the boys line and one for the girls line) throughout the day.  Today, just being curious, I asked the children why they wanted to be line leaders.  I was then surrounded by very articulate and thoughtful children who told me why they wanted to be the line leader.  Emily said, “I cannot hear or see when I am in the back so I like to be in the front so I can hear you.”  DeOnna said, “I want to hurry in (from wherever we are coming from) and get my spot so I can sit and do what I am supposed to do.”  Heaven said, “I want to get in quickly.”

I thought it was very interesting to hear their perspectives about why they want or like to be in the front.  We were talking about maybe timing the person in the front to see how long it took them to get to where they need to be and then timing the person in the back to see how long it takes them because we thought “Is there a big difference in time between the first person and last person?”  Then DeOnna said, “I have an idea!  Why don’t we take turns so each day there is a new person in front of the line!”  The children reacted with such excitement and gratitude towards that idea so tomorrow we are going to start that.  I am going to pick two people at random to be the line leaders, and we will continue to do that until everyone has a turn.  Then, we will start over.

I just thought it was a very mature conversation we had today with much articulation and good collaboration that I wanted to share it with you.

Today we began a self-portrait study!  The next few weeks before Winter Break we will be exploring the idea of self portraits.  We have done a couple of self portraits before, but we have never really discussed them much in class.  We will look at various artists and their self-portraits.  We will use different materials to make self portraits.  By taking time to focus and look closely at ourselves, it helps with focusing and looking closely at our writing and reading.  I am excited to explore this idea of self-portraits more!

I cannot begin to tell you how excited the children were to see snow today!  We were busy doing Free Choice/Project Work when all of a sudden someone realized it was snowing.  Then almost all of the children huddled by the window cheering that it was snowing!  It was so fun to see their excitement!  Hopefully there is more snow tomorrow so they can enjoy it further.

Madeline P. reading some poems to the class today!

Some of the children huddled by the window enjoying the snow!

Isaac working on his self portrait tracing today.

Comments RSS