IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today was a busy day! During school today I worked with the Neptune group and the Mars group on their planet representations. The Neptune group worked on a video the first so today we revisited the video and talked about what we liked and what we thought we could do better when we revised it. It was an excellent example of revisions and editing work to get a more refined piece. Isaac noticed that he was moving around and “twisting his neck” so he thought he could do better. Sydney noticed that their voices were a little soft. I noticed that I was doing too much talking so we all worked on our noticings to improve our work and it really helped us make a more polished video to share with our families.

Then it was time to visit with the Mars group. They had made a poster with one of their Butler teachers. So, I had them explain their poster, tell me what they liked about it, and tell me what they did not like or things that could be better. It was another example of really looking closely at our work and editing it to make it even better than what it was!

I cannot tell you how excited each group is to work on their posters…it has been a real treat for me to work so closely with each group as they have worked on them.

Today we got our chickens! I wish you could have seen the children during recess. Let me paint you a picture. The children are running around enjoying playing with each other when all of a sudden they see a truck pull into our parking lot with the chicken coop in theback. The children all run towards the fence of the playground yelling “chickens! chickens! chickens!” and then follow the truck as it drives down the parking lot. It was such a sight to see! Each class got a chance to go out into the yard today to meet the chickens and learn about our responsibilities as caretakers. We look forward to watching them grow!

What an exciting day! This afternoon, two of our generous parents, Mr. Newbold and Mr. Reiberg, were generous enough to build three, 4×10 garden boxes. The boxes are beautiful and built of rot-resistant cedar. We can’t wait to plant in them on Wednesday. Remember to send your child in clothes they can get dirty for the big planting!

Zek reads our Beautiful Chickens book in ancicipation of our coop.

Jenesis finds a chicken she likes in the Beautiful Chickens book.

This morning, I was greeted by friends shouting things like “CHICKENS!” and “Do they come today?!?” Friends were so anxious to meet our new hens. This afternoon, Andrew Brake from Naptown Chickens brought us our beautiful coop and three, lovely Rhode Island Red hens: Thelma, Louise, and Dottie. We are lucky enough to have this opportunity thanks to Mandy Owens and Carly Swift, Jett and Hutton’s moms and the owners of Just Pop In! Just Pop In! was kind enough to fund this project for our school. This afternoon, each class went outside to learn a little bit about our new friends and how to care for them. The plan is to have each class share the responsibilities weekly. We also talked about some chicken rules we will need to follow to keep Thelma, Louise and Dottie safe as well as ourselves. Because we don’t want to frighten them, we will try our best to talk in a soft voice around the chickens and not touch them. We are so excited to see how much more we are going to learn about our new friends!

The girls! Meet Thelma, Louise, and Dottie.

The coop and the girls.

Maggie checks out the coop.

Tags: and Dottie, chickens, curious, garden, Louise, responsible, Thelma

We had an exciting afternoon today.  After recess, our class got to go meet our school chickens!  The kids were very interested in the chickens and had a lot of questions.  We will all be exploring together as we care for these animals in our school.

Two of our school chickens!

Mr. Andrew Brake, from Naptown Chickens explained the chickens to our class.

After the chickens we celebrated March and April’s birthdays.  Raki and Tyler worked together to make our cupcakes!

All of our friends are happy about the cupcakes!

I apologize for not being an active blogger this week!  Time has gotten away from me!  Over the past five days our kids have been working very hard on our play!  Mark your calendars for MAY 10th!  This is the night we will be performing our play for the families! Here are a few pictures to show the excitement in the room.

Dorothy is our Litterbug in the play. This week she completed her costume!

Wyatt worked on making a model of our set out of clay.

Reid worked very hard on his model of his helmet, a part of his costume.

We can’t wait to show you more on the actual big day!

With Mr. Nored fully phased into teaching right now and really taking the lead with the lessons, etc., it has really given me the opportunity to work with small groups and individuals a lot more which has been WONDERFUL and MEANINGFUL!! To be able to take the time and not rush our meaningful conversations has been rewarding and I think the children have enjoyed the time too.

Today I worked with two groups, Saturn and Uranus, on their representations for their planet research, and just like yesterday the two groups I worked with today worked so collaboratively, and I cannot even tell you how excited they were to share their knowledge with their friends! I have really enjoyed this time working closely with the friends, and I am excited to see more of what they do!