IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Carriea- "Five, ten, fifteen, twenty..."

Today we had goldfish for snack. Lately, the kids have been very interested in the concept of equity and making sure everyone has the same amount or about the same amount. After each child is distributed snack each day, they started lining up and counting their snack to check how many they have. Today, Carriea did something really interesting. She called me over to look at her snack and it was lined up in six rows of five goldfish each. She said, “Look Mrs. Argus! I can count by fives and find out how many!” She then proceeded to count her rows, “Five, ten fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty! I have thirty goldfish today!” What neat a real life application of the importance of counting by 5’s and using multiplecation. With all this counting and eating, I think we are running a little low on snack. If your family is able, any donations of animal crackers, goldfish, or pretzels would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

I also want to remind you that tomorrow is our Family Math Night from 6-7 here at the Lab School! Bring your family to play!

Tags: arithmetic

Yesterday, Mrs. Williams was not at school because she was sick.  As many of you know Mrs. Williams has been in our classroom since September.  She is with us everyday to help.  Like anyone in our classroom community, when she is absent we all miss her.  So when I told the kids that she was sick, they came up with the idea to make her a pillow.  While we make the pillow yesterday (so the pictures are from Monday), we gave it to Mrs. Williams when she returned today.

From a teacher’s perspective, this was a wonderful moment to watch. Knowing, that the kids worked cooperatively together in small groups to make something for a person in need is so special.  At this moment, the kids realized they have the power to help.  If nothing else, I hope this story warms your heart like I believe it did for myself and Mrs. Williams.

Kristien, Sophia, and Reid are working together to cut out the fabric for the pillow.

BreAnna and Tylisha are working together to close the pillow that a few others stuffed with feathers and yarn.

The finished pillow! Yes, there is a little duct tape, but three of the sides are sewed.

Before you start reading the blog, I want to apologize for the length of this entry.  I just kept typing and kept typing.  🙂

We had an interesting discussion today.  So, since the beginning of school there has always been a desire from the children to be the line leaders (one for the boys line and one for the girls line) throughout the day.  Today, just being curious, I asked the children why they wanted to be line leaders.  I was then surrounded by very articulate and thoughtful children who told me why they wanted to be the line leader.  Emily said, “I cannot hear or see when I am in the back so I like to be in the front so I can hear you.”  DeOnna said, “I want to hurry in (from wherever we are coming from) and get my spot so I can sit and do what I am supposed to do.”  Heaven said, “I want to get in quickly.”

I thought it was very interesting to hear their perspectives about why they want or like to be in the front.  We were talking about maybe timing the person in the front to see how long it took them to get to where they need to be and then timing the person in the back to see how long it takes them because we thought “Is there a big difference in time between the first person and last person?”  Then DeOnna said, “I have an idea!  Why don’t we take turns so each day there is a new person in front of the line!”  The children reacted with such excitement and gratitude towards that idea so tomorrow we are going to start that.  I am going to pick two people at random to be the line leaders, and we will continue to do that until everyone has a turn.  Then, we will start over.

I just thought it was a very mature conversation we had today with much articulation and good collaboration that I wanted to share it with you.

Today we began a self-portrait study!  The next few weeks before Winter Break we will be exploring the idea of self portraits.  We have done a couple of self portraits before, but we have never really discussed them much in class.  We will look at various artists and their self-portraits.  We will use different materials to make self portraits.  By taking time to focus and look closely at ourselves, it helps with focusing and looking closely at our writing and reading.  I am excited to explore this idea of self-portraits more!

I cannot begin to tell you how excited the children were to see snow today!  We were busy doing Free Choice/Project Work when all of a sudden someone realized it was snowing.  Then almost all of the children huddled by the window cheering that it was snowing!  It was so fun to see their excitement!  Hopefully there is more snow tomorrow so they can enjoy it further.

Madeline P. reading some poems to the class today!

Some of the children huddled by the window enjoying the snow!

Isaac working on his self portrait tracing today.

Michael drives his car on 465.

One of our new materials in class is cars. We have a tub with various sizes and types of cars that the kids love making ramps for and building streets for. Today, I noticed several friends running their cars over maps we have set up in the classroom. Aidan was tracing a thick red line on our Indianapolis map on our wall. “Its driving!” Aidan and I talked about how the thick red line made a box around Indianapolis. I explained that its a very busy highway- the 465 Interstate! Michael came over and began tracing his car along 465 as well. I am really excited to see where this global, map, geography investigation takes our class.

Tags: capable, curious, inspiration

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and vacation!

Today we were back to school and in full swing! We did have some sad news though today. I’m sorry to say that over Thanksgiving Break, our beloved praying mantis, Cinderella Lightning McQueen, passed away. I shared this news with the students at the end of the day. They were sad but had some beautiful ideas of how to celebrate Cinderalla. We will be having a funeral and burial ceremony tomorrow in honor of our class pet. I will keep you updated as to how this plays into the culmination of our bug project!