IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Wyatt and Tyler working together to write an invitation to Miss Estridge's class.

This week during Writer’s Workshop we have been talking a lot about different types of letters.  Today, we talked about invitations and how they invite people to different events.  During our work time the kids had a chance to make invitations for our play for the other classes.  On Thursday we will have an afternoon performance and all of the classes will be invited.

Reid, Max, and Olivia are hard at work on their invitation to the preschool class.

Zek mails his thank you letter.

Kaitlyn tries out the mailbox.

Da’Sean gives Cameron some help mailing his letter.

This week, we have been learning about different types of reasons people send and receive mail. Yesterday, we wrote first drafts of some thank you notes to friends who helped us with our garden. Today, we made final copies on real stationary, put stamps on them, and walked them to the mailbox down the street. Our friends loved sending real mail. We hope it got picked up today by the mailman!

We have also started a dialogue with Mrs. Clark’s class about trees. Last week, we sent Mrs. Clark’s class a letter asking if they would help us plant some trees in our garden. They sent us a letter back saying yes! They gave us four choices: apple, nut, maple, and cherry. This week, we are researching the four types of trees and looking for the two that will fit best in our garden. We are paying close attention to the specific habitats they need and how soon they can benefit our garden. (We learned sugar maple trees could take a very long time until we could actually harvest maple syrup).

Messi helps make a list of "not so beneficial" bugs.

The beneficial bug list.

Jenesis creates some bee puppets and they do “the bee dance” to tell the other bees where the pollen is.

Ruth creates a grasshopper puppet.

We have also been talking about bugs and ways that they may affect our garden. We started a list of beneficial bugs and another list of not so beneficial bugs. We are hoping to do more research and educate our fellow classmates and families about which bugs are ok for the garden and which ones we need to watch out for.

Tags: garden, project, writing

The chickens are eating our reused food.

Our class is responsible for taking care of the chickens this week!  All of our friends are responsible for watering, feeding, and collecting the eggs daily.  Today we gained two eggs!  We are going to be graphing the eggs this week to see if we see a pattern in how many are laid each day.  During lunch today, we collected food scraps to feed to the chickens.  When we got outside, Tylisha said, “Look!  We are reusing food! We took our old food and gave it to the chickens!”

Journey selects marigolds to draw.

Regan, Jenesis, and Journey create observational drawings of our garden plants.

Carriea and Tajanaye draw rosemary.

This morning, our class talked about how we would like to know more about the specific plants in our school garden. Journey said, “I know what we can do! We can go outside and draw them! We can learn by drawing!” What a fabulous idea. Everyone agreed it would be a good place to start. We brought our materials outside and each picked a plant to focus on. The kids were encouraged to only draw what they saw and use lots of detail. We actually ran into Mrs. Clark’s class outside who were doing the same thing!

After visiting our garden, we went over to our chickens to check on the girls. Each child sat down and did an observational drawing of Dottie, Thelma, and Louise as well. We have very keen observers in our classroom.

Do they have chicken pox? Hutton

No, they are molting! Lucas

Look, shes laying an egg! Tajanaye

I think shes just tired! Ruth

Coo, Coo! Messi (making chicken noises, he is quite good!)

Look, she puts her head in like a turtle. Zek

Should we feed the chickens chicken? Journey

That would make them sick! David

"Do the chickens have chicken pox?" Hutton

Angela gets close to draw the girls.

Friends love spending time observing our chickens.

Tags: chickens, curious, garden

I am sure you have heard by now, but our afternoon was amazing!  We stared after recess with a special yoga.  We had about 14 Butler friends come and join us. The kids taught them a new routine and then showed them how to relax and meditate.

Yoga with our Butler friends.

Our Butler friends meditating at the end of yoga.

When we were finished with yoga we were relaxed and ready to work on our play.  We spent the last portion of our day rehearsing and going over the scenes.  I am so proud!  The kids are taking this very seriously and are very excited to perform for everyone next week.  Don’t forget!  We will have a night show at 6:00pm on Thursday, May 10th! Anyone is welcome!