IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

All this week, we have been exploring sound patterns. Thursday and today, friends were invited to figure out how they could incorporate instruments into their sound patterns. Coincidentally, this also opened up the idea of teaching other friends our song patterns which started the idea of bands and orchestras. It has been a pleasure to watch the kids communicate with one another and become excited about teaching and learning one anothers’ songs. Today, I asked the kids to think about what music was. Without discussion, the kids were invited to create illustrations and drawings of music. Next week, we will talk together about the concept of music and revisit these pictures. It was exciting to see much of our learning about sound incorporated into friends’ pictures, such as sound waves, vibration, and pitch.

Tags: curious, music, project, sound, thinking

As I shared earlier this week, in Reader’s Workshop we have been talking about different perspectives of characters.  We have been reading Henry’s Freedom Box and Abe’s Honest Words.  Both of these books have the topic of slavery.  So this week we have been having a lot of rich conversations about perspectives of people during the time frame of the Civil War.   What were their feelings when it relates to slavery and how they treated people that were different.  I can’t even begin to tell you about how amazing their conversation was, but I will leave you with the quote of the day from Ruth: “I’m glad that slavery is gone because there are some really great people in this class that wouldn’t be here if it was still around.”

Students learned a shark chant during studio today, called “Sliding Up the Food Chain.” The chant was taught to them by some Butler students, and our class loved it! Here is how it goes:

(Animal), (animal) (verb) in the water.

(Animal), (animal) gulp, gulp, gulp!

OH NO! He got eaten by a (next animal in the food chain)

Students start by chanting the first animal at the bottom of our shark food chain. There is a matching verb that goes with each animals actions. Then at the end of the verse, students shout the animal that is next in the food chain. In the last verse about the shark, instead of saying “OH NO! He got eaten by a _____,” you make a burping sound and then say “Pardon me!”

Here are the animals in order from bottom to top of the food chain with their corresponding action:

plankton – splashing

mussels – slugging

lobsters – crawling

octopi – wiggling

sea lions – swimming

sharks – lurking

So, the first verse of the song would go:

Plankton, plankton, splashing in the water

Plankton, plankton gulp, gulp, gulp

OH NO! He got eaten by a mussel!

And then you would continue the next verse with mussels!

Hope that makes sense! Give it a try at home tonight! The kids loved it at school today and I’m sure they’d love sharing it with you too!

All Cooped Up: Since the spring, the Butler Lab School 60 has been engaging their students with a chicken coop! The chickens are laying eggs in the chicken coop and the students have opportunities to observe and watch.  The classes alternate week by week and each get to feed and give water to the chickens.  This week Miss Cegielski’s class fed the chickens and found one egg on Wednesday.

Lately Miss Cegielski’s students have shown interest in Abraham Lincoln and the issue of slavery in the past.  Miss Cegielski has been displaying books and asking the students questions which has led to incredible conversation in the class! The students are incredibly interested about this topic and have treated the issue very respectfully.

-Carly Plumlee

Update from the Butler classroom: Outside of the classroom, we have been working hard on completing our Teacher Research Reports.  Throughout the entire semester, some of our work has been centered around a question we came up with at the start of the semester.  As we have compiled data and implemented interventions with the children, we have accumulated loads of work to help us with our findings.  We are currently in the process of putting all of this data in to one place, the Teacher Research Binder.  In this will include our question, context (data about the school, classroom, focal child), information on our question, our interventions (work completed with focal child), findings, and conclusions.  While completing this report and looking back at the past few months, it has been extremely enlightening, and has made the entire semester of work seem extremely worthwhile.  It has been a joy to work with the kids at the Lab School, and we have learned as much from the kids as they have from us.

-Bo Davidson

Dreams Come True: I (Maggie) am placed in the preschool classroom at School 60, also known as St. Mary’s.  My favorite thing about St. Mary’s is that the students direct their own learning and the teachers administer it.  One way I can example this was when Mae, a three year old, came into class talking about a dream she had the night before. She said that she woke up in the middle of the night because she was painting leaves in her dream.  She was fascinated by this and could not stop talking about this. Ms. Fogler, the head teacher, asked Mae if she would like to paint leaves and other parts of nature in class. Of course, Mae and all the other students were more than excited for this activity! They all went outside and picked up leaves, sticks, branches, etc. and then painted them in the classroom.  This is a perfect example of how students direct the classroom, but the teacher administers it.  It is the teacher’s job to find things that the students are interested and put them in a project.

-Maggie Harbison

Selam and Tylisha working together in Math Workshop.

This week we are finishing up our unit on place value by studying expanded form.  Over the past few weeks, I have really seen the kids grow in their number awareness.  I am so proud of the way that all of the kids can break apart numbers into the thousands (YES!  thousands!), hundreds, tens, and ones.  Today, I want to share a story about Selam and Tylisha.  These two have been partners a few times, but not each day.  These two started working together and I came over to see their thinking.  I was not only blown away by their ability to discuss and share the ideas, but also when they did disagree once they were able to talk it out and come to a conclusion.  Many of our kids do this on a daily basis so I wanted to share a snapshot of what Mr. Ward and I see each day!