IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today was another fun day because we went and supported the 2nd-6th graders get ready for their holiday performance.  The children loved singing along with them and watching their older peers sing.

So the past couple of weeks there has been some debate over who gets to be where in line.  We had a class discussion a couple of weeks ago to discuss why we want to be in the front of line.  This afternoon we had another discussion about where we are in line, and I asked the children what we could do so that there is less arguing over where we are in line.  The children gave some interesting ideas like “We could wear tags that have numbers on them and then you know where you are in line.”  Another friend said, “They could be necklaces because the tags will be lost.”  Another friend said, “We could have a list of our names and then each day we can see where we are going to be in line.”  We talked about which one we thought would work, and we have a new system that we are going to start tomorrow.  Along the wall inside the door of our classroom, there are the children’s names.  Each day they will see their names.  That will be the order they will be in for that day, and then the next day it will change.  The children seemed quite excited about it, and I asked them if they thought this would help with our lines.  They all agreed that they thought this would be something fair we could do.  I will let you know how it goes…:)

We sent home gifts to you all today.  The children were very excited about the gifts to hang so we thought we would send them home today rather than wait until Thursday.  I hope that you all enjoyed the DVD that I made for you all.  Just a little something to show you the children throughout the first semester.

Playing "Roll-a-Gingerbread" during Math Workshop today!

Cha'kyra and Heaven taking a moment for a picture!

One of the little figures that Jonah's mom helped make with us today!

Hello!  Today was such a wonderful day!  This week we are focusing on “friendship is working together.”  Each day we will be working in partners to work on collaborating and working together.  This morning we started to work on a book in partners (or in threes for a couple of groups).  The groups had to work together to make their own gingerbread story. It was really amazing to see the children collaborate on this venture.  Each morning they are going to work together on this book and then Thursday we are going to share them in front of the group.

Jonah’s mom came in this afternoon to do some crafts with the kids.  Today they made owls, and I was so impressed with how hard they worked on them.  They really looked like owls!  The children were quite excited to bring them home and share them with you.

Madeline's beautiful owl

Jonah and Oliver working together on their gingerbread book!

Joseph and Isaac working together to co-author a gingerbread book!

Da'Sean and Angela make passports with Miss Schmidt.

Buenos dias! Tomorrow is our flight to Mexico (remember, the flight leaves at 6pm here at school) and in preparation, we made passports today. We talked about the signifigance of a passport and why it might be a good thing to have them when we travel. Our friends are so excited for our trip! We hope you can join us.  

Tags: collaboration

Good evening!  I know that I do not usually blog on Sunday evenings, but I have a couple of things on my mind that I thought I would go ahead and blog about.

On Thursday afternoon we are going to be making gingerbread houses (the kids do not know this yet).  They are going to be working on these in partners (11 total gingerbread houses will be made) and then they will be kept at school to marvel at when we get back to school in January.  I wanted to see if any parents wanted to come in around 2pm on Thursday to help with this fun project!  Let me know if you would like to come in!

Also, does anyone have a green thumb?  Our poor ferns are struggling to survive, and I did not know if anyone was willing to take one or both of our ferns over break and try nursing them back to health.  I think the changes in temperature in the building throughout the week and on the weekend does not help them so I thought having them in our building over break would probably not be very good for them.  Let me know if you would be interested in taking one or both.

Thanks to you all, and I am looking forward to this week of Gingerbread fun!

As I reflect back on the day I love how many fun moments we had! Our day started with a very exciting discovery.  We had an elf on one of our shelves!  A few minutes later we discovered that this elf had written us a letter explaining why she was here.  As the kids went from lunch to studio to recess she followed them!  We realized she was magic!   We had a lot of questions so together, as a class, we wrote a letter back to our elf that we named Cinderella.

We found the letter!

Our elf, Cinderella

Nytaiya helping us write our letter back to Cinderella.

After the elf fun, the recycling collection.  I was very proud of our kids, as we walked through the entire building to get paper!  As I said in yesterday’s blog, we decided to split into two groups.  The group with me went to grades 2-6.  They were troopers as we had to go up and down for three different stories!  The group with Mrs. Williams went to the K-1 classrooms, preschool, and the office.  They had a lot of paper!  It was really enjoyable to see how the kids truly felt as if they were helping the school.  Tylisha said, “Mrs. Clark, when you recycle you save the earth!”

As if that is not enough today we filled up our marble jar!! It was full!  The kids have earned an ice cream party.  As a class, we decided that this party would be on Tuesday of next week.

Our adventure-filled day is not done yet!  During snack we started a new chapter books, The Christmas Party from the Black Lagoon.  The kids voted on this book last week as we got close to finishing the Magic School Bus book.

Wow!  What a day.  I hope all of you have an equally exciting weekend!