IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Friends create pinatas with Miss Schmidt.

Each morning this week, several friends have been joining Miss Schmidt in the hallway to create some Mexican culture- pinatas! Our pinatas are formed around balloons, and then little strips of newspaper and tissue paper are glued around, similar to paper mache. While we don’t think we will be filling these pinatas with anything inside, we hope to have them displayed for our trip to Mexico, which is next Tuesday evening from 6-7. We hope you can come and see them!

Tajanaye tries out the drums.

 Today during studio and explore, several children were drawn to a medium sized, wooden basket that recently appeared in our classroom. Inside, our friends found special instruments from Mexico and Central America that Mrs. Argus has collected on trips. The kids loved trying out the maracas, pan pipe, and drums, just to name a few! Messi and Monica organized a group of about six friends and started leading a band. They would say in unison, “5, 6, 7, 8” and then the rest of the friends would start playing. What a neat way to work together to create something. This teamwork was discussed during our closing meeting. After playing in unison for a while, Messi and Angela noticed that while the band was playing beautiful music, there were no dancers to enjoy it! Angela called to the rest of the class, “WE NEED MORE DANCERS!” and a slew of friends ran over to the band and started dancing, imitating the way we have seen people from Mexico dance in videos. We had a fiesta in our very own classroom!

Friends dance to our Mexican band,