IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Tomorrow, we begin a new experience with a group of physical education students from Butler. Our kids will get to meet with them two times a week for seven weeks and engage in various movement activities. It should be a very fun and rewarding experience!

Tomorrow is also our class Friendship/Valentine’s Parties. Please remember to have your child bring their valentines if they did not choose to make any at school.

Thursday evening is our parent organization meeting at 6pm. Please join us as we form committees and get to action!

Next Monday there is no school due to President’s Day. We will see you back on Tuesday, the 21st.

Tags: Butler, family focus, friendship

Journey and Monica work on some valentines.

Zek suggests we name the fish.

This morning, our friends noticed a new classmate swimming on one of our counters- a beautiful blue beta fish. The kids were so intrigued by our new friend and many visited with him throughout the day.  David asked, “What’s the fish’s name?” and Zek suggested we vote on a name. After listening to many suggestions, we narrowed it down to five choices and the name Harper won by a landslide. What a nice name for a fish! The kids also suggested we create agreements for Harper. Sascha came up with such a wonderful one- “Be kind to the fish. Say nice things to the him.” What a fabulous way to not only practice kindness to animals but also our friendship skills we have been working so hard on refining.

While we had a new pet in our room today, we did not forget our two class pets aquired last week by the help of our friend, Ruth. Two beautiful earth worms have also made their home in our classroom. During studio and explore, the kids enjoyed observing and handling the worms.

Ruth helps Tajanaye gently handle the worm.

The kids also enjoyed something new in our classroom- dress up. I have a variety of vintage dress up clothes that are brightly colored and fun to try on. We even have some funky hats too that accessorize the perfect outfit. The kids loved trying on the clothes and putting on shows with them. If you have any old clothes that you would like to donate and think might make fun dress up outfits, please let me know. I see this as something the kids will be enjoying for a while!

"We're going on a cruise!"

Hutton- you are fabulous looking!

Tags: creativity, curious, friendship, responsible

We play one of our morning community building games, WHO IS IT? with our Butler friends.

Miss Roby reads to us about gardens.

We work on our large class clock, now including minutes.

Lucas and Hutton hit the dance floor at the end of a busy day.

We had another great day today. We were joined by our Butler Block A students, Miss Pistello, Miss Roby, Miss Barr, and Miss Legg. The kids are enjoying getting to know our new friends through games, working in small groups, and working individually with these adults.

Tags: Butler, friendship

Our new daily agenda.

As we continue our study of clocks and telling time, we have decided to change something in our room- our daily agenda. We had an old daily agenda in our room, but it was not something we referred to often after the beginning of the year and the kids did not have much interest in it. Yesterday morning, a handful of friends helped me take down the old agenda and begin a new one. Our experiences at the lab school and in years at previous schools have shown us that if the kids have a part in creating something, they are far more likely to use and refer to it than if it is store bought or teacher created. The children helped me think of each part of our day in sequential order, such as morning meeting, writer’s workshop, lunch, math workshop etc. We then wrote them on strips of paper and added them to our new agenda board. Then, more friends helped illustrate pictures of each activity. During morning meeting, friends noticed something else that was new to the agenda- some clocks! Several drawings of clocks were added to different parts of the day to indicate when each part begins (relatively). After making these changes, Miss Schmidt and I noticed all day friends were referring to the agenda and checking the time. Success!

Tags: arithmetic, collaboration, time

Monica and Da'Sean try out a tunnel launcher.

Lucas and Christian create a bridge on the marble launcher.

Friday was an exciting day for us. As soon as the kids came in, they were begging to play with the blocks as a morning choice activity and continue working on their marble launcher. They began experimenting with different positioning of blocks and mini ramps to try to get the marbles to go faster down the chute. We had a class conversation about why many marbles didn’t quite make it down the whole chute. Zek suggested maybe we needed more force, like how cars and trucks had engines, we needed something like that for our marbles. Ruth suggested that maybe the cracks between each block on the chute were slowing down the marbles. Lucas suggested we had created too many obstacles in the chute and they were slowing the marbles. Later on in the day, during studio and explore, we tried putting some of these suggestions into place. First, we eliminated some of the obstables. Then, the kids found a new tunnel launcher for the beginning of the chute, which they positioned at a more severe angle to create more force. Last, Ruth led a group of friends to try taping down the cracks between the blocks to create a smoother chute. We found that our three improvements increased the speed and a friend even brough up that we should be timing our marbles. Perhaps we will do this next week!

We have also been enjoying our daily yoga sessions with Mrs. Williams so much. The kids have already learned so much and I am noticing, it helps create a calm atmosphere for math workshop.

Hutton's cobra pose.

Journey trying downward dog.

Tags: collaboration, experiment, problem solving, scientific method, yoga