IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today (in preparation of our trip to the Gecko exhibit at the Children’s Museum) we began looking closer at deserts.  We brought in some sand and some fossils that would be in a desert.  The children really loved exploring with the sand!  We also had a really interesting snake x-ray that Alejandra used to help her tell a story of a snake coming into a house!  We will continue to explore deserts this week!

We also opened a dollhouse to play with and oh my-it was so fun to see so many friends playing with it, and such great caretakers we have!

Our friends were really excited to have our new Butler teachers in our class today.  Mr. Webster, Miss Slagel, Miss Merar, and Miss Devers will be in our room every Monday for their practicum.  I was so impressed with how they jumped in, asked questions, and were really engaged with the children and their work!

I wish you could have been there today when Miss Boyle and I told the kiddos about the field trip coming up.  They were hanging onto every word I was saying and they were SUPER excited when I told them we were seeing the new Geckos exhibit at the Museum.

We are going to begin studying deserts and geckos coming up on Monday so we are really thrilled for this fun project!

Today, we introduced two games to work with measuring.  The first game the children took pages that had squiggly lines on them.  Then, the children had to put a piece of yarn on that squiggly line until it matched perfectly.  They then had to guesss how long the yarn is.  After they guessed how long the yarn was, they had to measure it with their ruler and see if their prediction was correct.

The second game the children had 4 cars labeled A,B,C,D.  The children let each car go down an incline and they placed a peiece of tape where the car stopped.  Then they measured from the bottom of the incline to the front of each car to see which car went the farthest.

Both games were such a hit!  When we were going around the circle talking about how the games went, these were the words that were shared:  Joe-“INCREDIBLE!”, Maggie-“AWESOME!”, Danielle-“GREAT!”And tomorrow we are going to play them again.

Today we introduced the word “landscapes” into our class.  I cannot even tell you how excited the children are to be using the landscapes to guide their play, stories, and imaginations!  It has been fun to see such collaborative thinking and playing.  This has really been such a great provocation to get the children inspired.  Habitats and Animals here we come!

Today we brought out measuring tapes and rulers to measure the same items we measured yesterday with our feet.  The children all agreed on the fact that the rulers and measuring tape are a more efficient way to manner than our traced and cut out feet.

We have some fun games the next couple of days having to do with measuring so we are excited to continue to explore measuring!

So, through creating a new home for Sam and his family, through studying homes this week, it appeared to Miss Boyle and I that habitats was the common thread.  The children have always had such a fascination with the animals in our room so today we put out a few provocations that would follow both animals and homes…create various habitats and explore.

One thing that was a hit today was the projector and farm landscape!  The children LOVED creating stories with the animals and letting their imaginations run wild.  We will have this out as long as the interest is but we will explore various backgrounds and landscapes to explore various habitats.

Habitats….