IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

We have discovered that our class has a great interest in creating and flying our own airplanes. After watching the children create all week, I decided that we would take this interest and pair it together with our interest in length and measurement. Today during Math Workshop, one of our friends, Hutton, showed the entire class how to make a paper airplane. We worked together to help friends that were struggling and made sure that each child had an airplane. Then we decorated and personalized our airplanes so we knew which one belonged to us. We then decided to take turns flying our airplane to see which could go the farthest. We started with a question, “How will we know which is farthest?” Some ideas were to measure in miles, floor tiles, and with kids. McKinley brought up inches. We then took a look at a 6 inch ruler. Regan said, “That’s not big enough silly!” So we pulled out a 12 inch ruler. We decided it was still not going to be big enough to measure our flights. Regan then found the large, 60 inch measuring tape in my basket. The class decided it would be sufficient to get us started. We sat as a class and counted down a takeoff for each child (“One, Two THREEEE!!!”) and watched the planes soar. Some of the planes made it past 60 inches. We then had to problem solve as to how to measure past our measuring tape by adding another large ruler. The kids wrote their distances on a big chart and we discussed the results afterwards. Make sure to take a look at your child’s airplane in thier take home folder this weekend. They did a great job with this activity!

"My airplane is pink. Isn't it nice?" - Messi

Cameron and Dylan preparing their airplanes for flight.

Good evening!  I first want to apologize for not writing everyday on the blog.  Starting next week, I will be posting something everyday at the end of the day with the kids or right after school so that you can look at it with your children.  Yesterday and today we continued to work on the procedures of school, which they are getting each and everyday.

Yesterday we had a blast making boats out of foil.  After making the boats, we counted to see how many coins we could put in the boats before they sank.  It was fun to see how creative the child got with making their boats.  Some of the boats were squares.  Some were circular in shape.  Some children got a few coins in before it sank.  Sydney put 90 coins in her boat before it sunk!!

Today we did the long jump. I placed a  piece of tape on the floor and then each child jumped as far as they could.  We marked where each child jumped, and then we had a discussion about how to measure each jump.  Emily said, “We have to measure the distance from the start line to each person’s mark!”  Jonah then shared that we have to use something that has numbers on it like a measuring tape.  I showed a ruler, but all of the children said “No! It has to be longer!”  I then got out a measuring tape, and each child proceeded to figure out how long each jump was.   Once we were finished the children wanted to wear their tape so that they could share with their other friends how far they jumped!

Some of our friends measuring the distance for their long jump!

Joshua working hard building his building.

Jett showing off a ball that he made out of Play-doh that we played catch with for a little bit!

Take a peek at what we have done over the past two days!  As we start Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop the kids are really enjoying themselves!  They now come in asking to write books and reread books that we have read together.  In addition, I think their favorite time of the current day is Free Choice.  We have now opened up paint and it is the class favorite!

As school begins, the Lab School is working on building a community. One of the ways we are building a community in our classroom is through creating and honoring Agreements for Peace. As a class, we sat down together and talked about what a peaceful being is and what a peacemaker is. We talked about ways that we could show peacefulness in our classroom and came up with our Agreements for Peace. Below is our list:

Share.

Be kind.

Listen to who is talking.

Take care of our materials.

As the school year progresses, we may see that we need more agreements added or changed. These decesions will be made as a class after thoughtful discussion.

Kaitlyn writes some of our Agreements for Peace.