IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Here's a picture of the notes that we took on what our puppet show should be.

Today, I asked a question to see if the children were interested in putting on a puppet show for you all.  The majority of the children said they would love to so then I asked what show would we put on, and the children gave a list of ideas ranging from Goldilocks and the Three Bears to The Three Little Pigs to Michael Jordan to Spongebob.  We went through each choice and talked about how many characters were in the story so that we could narrow down the choices, and the children ended up with the following stories:

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

The Princess and the Frog

The Three Little Pigs

The Runaway Pancake

Those will be the stories we will be acting out.  Now, I am not sure when this will be because we have lost to do to prepare like:  creating the puppets, creating a backdrop, writing a script and program as well as making a poster.  But I did want to keep you up to date with where we were on the process of puppet making!!

By the way, next Wednesday at 11:15, a puppeteer from Peewinkle’s Puppet Theater will be here to help make puppets with the kids.  If you would like to come and help the children make the puppets that would be wonderful!

Saa's puppet he made, and then he labeled the different parts of the puppet so that we can have an understanding of the different parts we have to make when we make our own puppets.

Good afternoon!  Puppets have seemed to take over our classroom.  Today we started a few new things.  One thing we started which the kiddos were so excited about was “Mrs. Bucher’s Family Fun Bag.”  This bag will be taken home each night with one of the students.  There is an activity to do at home as a family.  Then, you send back the bag and the finished product to school the next day so someone else can take it.  This family bag has all things to do about puppets….and let me tell you each child was so excited about the opportunity to take it home and share in the fun with each of you.

We started new literacy activities today to go along with Reader’s Workshop.  Some of the setations have to do with six sight words:  see, like, and, the, am, is.  Some of the activities have to do with puppets.  For example, I have some scripts that the children have to look through and find the sight words we will talk about this week.  Another activitiy is labeling and decorating a puppet of their own.

Another thing we started today is using our math notebooks.  Today, we all sat in a circle and solved a story problem that was in our math notebook.  If someone came up with the answer, I asked them to show me another way to show the answer.  The answer was nine today to our problem, and many friends wrote the number nine, drew nine squares or another object.  I was so proud of them.  We are asking each child to not only answer the problem but then to show us other ways to show the answer or problem so that they are stretching their thinking.

Hello hello!  Today, we made slime as a way to end our week and get ready for the long weekend.  The kids really enjoyed this activity and were asking if we could do it again and again.  It was a great way to measure the liquids we needed (a wonderful math experience) as well as have fun getting messy.  A lot of the kiddos asked me if I could send home the recipe so I told them that I would put it on here for them.  I hope that you have a great long weekend, and we will see you Tuesday!!

Here’s How To Make Slime:

1. Pour the glue into the jar. If you have a big bottle of glue, you want 4 oz or 1/2 cup of glue.
2. Fill the empty glue bottle with water and stir it into the glue (or add 1/2 cup of water).
3. If desired, add food coloring. Otherwise, the slime will be an opaque white.
4. In a separate, mix one cup (240 ml) of water into the bowl and add 1 teaspoon (5 ml) of borax powder.
5. Slowly stir the glue mixture into the bowl of borax solution.
6. Place the slime that forms into your hands and knead until it feels dry. (Don’t worry about the excess water remaining in the bowl.)
7. The more the slime is played with, the firmer and less sticky it will become.
8. Have fun!
9. Store your slime in a zip-lock bag in the fridge (otherwise it will develop mold).

Tips:

1. Use white glue, such as Elmer’s brand. Most ‘school glues’ do not have the correct composition.
2. Don’t eat the slime – it isn’t especially toxic, but not good for you either!
3. Slime cleans up pretty easily. Remove dried slime after soaking with water.
4. I’ve got step-by-step video instructions if you would like to see this project in action plus I made a YouTube video of the slime showing what you will get if you use glue gel rather than white glue. Either type of glue works well.

What You Need

• borax powder
• water
• 4 ounce (120 ml) glue (e.g., Elmer’s white glue)
• teaspoon
• bowl
• jar or measuring cup
• food coloring (optional)
• measuring cup

Jonah squeezing and pulling the slime apart.

DeOnna loving the slime!

Madeline S. enjoying the slime fun!

Today, we put on a puppet show using puppets that I created from The Runaway Pancake.  The children have really enjoyed this book so I thought this was a great activity to do to work on retelling a story (one way to read a book) as well as further our experience with puppets.  The children LOVED this “Reader’s Theater” as I called it and wanted to keep doing it.

During Math Workshop today we discussed how dominoes can show us another form of a number.  We explored dominoes a bit, and then we made our snack look like a domino!  The children were very excited to have a different kind of snack today!

Writer’s Workshop today was so wonderful!  All of the children showed movement in their books so we did a whole group share so that each person could be celebrated for their hard work!

Today, during our project work time, many of the kiddos were making puppets and putting on puppet shows.  Shaniyia, Emily, and Selam even started adding the audience (placing chairs in rows) so everyone could watch the shows!  It was so fun to see their excitement grow and then to see everyone else so excited to watch the show was so fun!

Some of Miss Estridge’s friends came into the class too and watched, and everyone was thrilled for that.  We added a curtain today because some were saying that they needed something to cover up their puppets until the show was ready.  The kiddos are pretty creative with their puppets…we have some Miss Piggy puppets, some vampire puppets (with a mustache), some princesses.  I am really excited to see where this puppet enthusiasm goes!

We had our first Birthday Cupcake Celebration today!  Thanks to Madeline S. and Geneva’s families for coming in and baking cupcakes for our first month’s celebration!  They did a great job, and all of the children LOVED the cupcakes.

Putting up the chairs so we have an audience!

Isaac and his vampire (with a mustache) puppet.