IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

This is a question Mr. Ward has been asking the kids for the past few days: “Is it a solid, liquid, or gas?”  Each day in morning meeting this week Mr. Ward has presented one of the three states of matter and we have been having short discussions on each of them.  The kids were so interested in the small things we talked about with our Children’s Museum investigation, We decided from that to continue talking about the different types of matter.  The conversations have been fun to hear and see what the kids notice.  We will be continuing with these conversations and explorations in the next few weeks!

Today, in Reader’s Workshop, we started talking about different perspectives in stories.   Over the next few weeks we are going to be digging into this idea that all people (characters) have different perspectives on events. Today we used the historical fiction book, Henry’s Freedom Box to talk about different perspectives.  This book focuses on a slave and his life and eventual escape to freedom.  I was so impressed with the kids conversations about the perspectives of the slave vs. the slave owner.  We had some powerful conversations!  Someone even said the slave owners were selfish because all they wanted was money and they really didn’t care about the slaves.   The conversations were so rich and I could already see the kids begin to tackle this topic with an intense book.  I am really looking forward to more of these great conversations as the week progresses.

Remember that the fall carnival is tomorrow night from 6-8.  We hope to see many of you there!

-Lab School Teachers

Carriea and Oliver are writing their letters to the Children’s Museum.

Jonah writing his letter to the Children’s Museum.

This week the kids decided that they needed to inform the Children’s Museum where the leak came from in the Museum.  The kids have decided that it was the aquarium.  Today, we worked together to decide what was important to tell our friends at the museum.  The kids wanted to tell them that we recreated the sample from the leak and saw there was salt in it and we know that there is salt in the aquarium water.  We also discovered that the aquarium water was the most dense because of the salt in it.  Each child had the chance to start working on their letters.  We will continue this work tomorrow and put them in the mail after that!

David and William playing Knock Knock

Dorothy and Shayla playing Knock Knock

This afternoon, Mr. Ward introduced a new game to the kids to help with place value.  This game was called Knock Knock.  It is played with a deck of cards.  Each player gets three cards and they have to build the largest number possible.  They can trade cards one time to get a higher number.  It was great to see the kids switching numbers around in the hundreds, tens, and ones places to create larger numbers.  It really made them think!  When Mr. Ward asked at the end of Math Workshop who enjoyed the game everyone agreed it was great!  I know they will enjoy it in the upcoming weeks!

We started something new in morning meeting this week: sharing stories!  Each day, during morning meeting we have a sharing time.  In the past, the kids have had a chance to bring in items from home and talk about them.  While this has been successful I gave the kids a challenge on Monday.  Could we still share, but not have any physical items in our hands?  Could we share stories from our life?  The kids were so excited about this!  We have had so many stories over the past few days.  I feel like these stories are really helping build our community.  The kids are so engaged in listening to the others and finding out about what is happening outside of school.  They are genuinely concerned and have a lot of questions to ask.  It is great to see the kids so involved in “outside school” life!  I have to say that this is turning into one of my favorite parts of the day 🙂