IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today our class made pan pipes. We created these by lining up 8 different sizes of cut straws longest to shortest. Then we taped the straw pieces together and blew away! We had some conversations about how the sound waves traveled through the different straws and what that meant for pitch. Earlier this morning, a friend had created an instrument that changed pitch. We learned that the less rubber band space the instrument had, the higher the pitch. The more space the sound waves had to travel, the lower the pitch. We were interested to see if this was true for the panpipes- and it was! See if your learner can play different pitches for you.

Tags: listening, music, project, sound

As you have heard, there was a mysterious leak at the Children’s Museum that we were invited to investigate.  I know we shared some of the story from our trip already, but I wanted to give more detail to what the students have been working on.  When we were at the museum the students were in different groups according to different museum exhibits that had water: Water Clock, Dock Shop, Pond, Aquarium, and Cannon.  In their groups they gathered data about the water from their site.  It was so exciting to see the children using the science tools that we had been using in class.  They were able to share information about reading the thermometers and using the hydrometers with the volunteers leading the groups from the museum.

When we returned to school each group had data to share.  We spent time talking in our groups and then sharing information with the class.  We also had a water sample from each exhibit at the museum.  We were able to recreate the stain with the water samples to see if we could figure out which exhibit made the stain.  After analyzing the data and looking at our recreated stains our class agreed that the aquarium had to be the exhibit that was leaking.  We also, received a note from Mrs. Clark’s class letting us know that they made the same conclusion!

Today we started writing letters to the museum to tell them what we think about the leak and share our data to support our conclusion. We’ll revise and edit our letters later this week!

Today, we made School 60 history!

Last week, a few students noticed that a brick wall on on side of our playground was being repaired and it had a hollow center. At the suggestion of Miss Simpson, children began to brainstorm what we could put into the wall for someone to find later! After much brainstorming and debate, we decided to fill a jar with noted, that way we wouldn’t be sad if we never got the contents back!

Today, we wrote down what we hoped to be doing in twenty years on paper and put these notes in the jar. We included a note from us that included the date, time, and a little about our school. We set the jar outside by the wall for the repairman to place and can’t wait to see the wall our patched up with our little secret inside!

Today during Story Workshop, we talked about Selah working so hard on a revised drawing of a jar of crayons. We noticed that there was a lot more detail within her drawing which made her so excited. So, then I challenged our friends to once they were finished working on their first draft, they could walk to a friend and ask them to critique their work. Then, they could take that critique and revise their work to make it even stronger than it already was While I was working with some friends, I noticed that there were two instances where friends had other friends critiquing their work, and I was really impressed with how thoughtful they were being with each other.

Today we began our chicken responsibilities! Today and the rest of the week we will be responsible to feed the chickens, retrieve their eggs, and change their water. Today, I took 6 friends, and they had such a blast helping take care of our chickens!

This week we are beginning our independent author studies in story workshop.  Over the past few weeks, we have been exploring 6 different authors: Margaret & H.A. Rey, Arnold Lobel, Robert McCloskey, Eric Carle, Margaret Wise Brown, and Beatrix Potter. Yesterday and today the kids had the chance to go through the books and pick their top 3 authors.  Tomorrow, they will be given their author that they can study.  The end goal is that the kids create a piece of work that is similar to the author they are studying.