IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

As you may know, our class is immersed in a garden project. We have been learning about vermicomposting, seed germination and plant development, the benefits of gardening locally, how insects benefit our garden, and are starting to talk about urban farming on a larger scale. Within the next two weeks, we will be assembling some garden boxes for our school and planting some small vegetable plants we have started from seeds. We are so excited for where this project has led us, and the learning opportunities thus far have been incredible. As we get ready to plant, I wanted to ask families if they would be interested in assisting us with the task of starting our garden. Please let us know if you would be able to do any of the following:

donate plants for the school garden

come in and help build the garden boxes depending on the day

come in and help spread soil depending on the day

come in and help plant the beds depending on the day

donate gardening gloves or help find a donor for them

donate gardening tools (hoes, rakes, shovels, or trowels) or help find a donor for them

donate mulch or help find a donor for it

donate a 50 ft hose and spray nozzle or help find a donor for it

Thank you for your support with this project! We hope this garden becomes a part of our school culture and that it teaches responsibility, care for nature, and the importance of sustainability, amongst many other things! Make sure to ask your child about a special announcement that is coming on Thursday afternoon…

Compost bins

Tags: capable, collaboration, family focus, garden, responsible

This morning when the children were coming in I noticed that many of them were talking about how excited they were for math workshop and going shopping for their telescopes! It was so much fun to see them so excited to shop for their telescopes and then see them so engaged in making them.

They are excited to bring them home and then use them when we go to Butler on Saturday night!

J'Nayla and CJ are playing the exchange game.

Today we learned a new game in Math Workshop.  We learned the exchange game and the kids loved it!  To play this game all you need is dice, pennies, and nickels.  The kids roll the dice and pick up that many pennies.  Once they have collected 5 pennies they can exchange it for a nickel!  Whoever has the most nickels wins.  I knew they would be excited about learning a new game, but I had no idea how long they would want to keep playing it!  We had one group that after 20 minutes was still wanting more.

We had a busy day today! Earlier this week, I blogged about money.  We had started learning about pennies on Monday.  Well today we put that knowledge to work.  The kids had a chance to build a bird feeder for outside in our school courtyard.  There were a lot of choices of what to put on the bird feeder, but each student only got 6 cents and they had to make the decision on what to buy with their money.  (No worries, they got the pinecone for free!)  They spent yesterday planning their creation and what materials they needed to buy and today our store opened!

In Writer’s Workshop we have spent this week talking about different details in writing.  Today we took that into our play.  As a class we talked about details we see in writing and how we can add them to our play.  Sophia gave us the idea that we could add details in our costumes.  So today, we spent our time planning and sketching our costumes.  A few friends even write lists of what they needed to make their costumes!

Finally, today was the last day for our Butler friends!  We had a wonderful semester with them and I personally appreciated all the support and help they provided!  While we will miss them, I have already been told they will be back to visit 🙂

Miss Kirby opening up her gift from the class.

Miss Hunter, Miss Prop, Miss Moheban, and Miss Weist opening up their gifts from the class.

Today we went shopping during Math Workshop! The children have been learning about the penny this week so today we made this lovely table filled with all of this beautiful stuff! Each item had a price tag on it. The children learned that they were going to be making a telescope to look at the stars! They could not buy everything so they had to use their shopping list to figure out what they wanted to buy. With only 10 cents each, the children really thought about what they wanted. The children were so disappointed when they learned they were not actually putting together their telescope today, but throughout the rest of the day they said how excited they were for tomorrow!

During Project Work time today we focused on the children making their representations of the facts they have learned about their planet. We had children working with posters, book making, paints…so much going on and everyone was so engaged! I look forward to seeing the process of the children preparing their knowledge to share to you!