IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

This is going to be hard for me to resist and hard for me to forget.  Lucas

This quote brings so much warmth to my heart. These words were spoken by Lucas during our worm dissection with the wonderful Mrs. Grotjan and Miss Robison. Lucas’ words embody the essence of Reggio inspired, project based learning and what our goal here is at the Lab School- facilitate a love of learning. Today, our studio teachers gathered small groups of friends to engage in a detailed worm investigation that included a dissection. It proved to be a fascinating and captivating experience for all involved! Tomorrow, more friends will participate in the activity. I can’t wait to see what about the investigation interests them and what observations will come. More documentation on this incredible experience is coming.

The worm is captivating!

Messi and Cameron work as scientists.

Hutton investigates.

Journey and her worm.

Tags: capable, curious, garden, project, scientific method

First of all, what a beautiful day today was!  We enjoyed outside during recess, then we did yoga outside, then we read Charlotte’s Web and ate snack outside…everyone  just LOVED it!

Yesterday when I walked into the classroom, I noticed there were two big boxes in the room.  When the children walked in, some asked, “What are those boxes for?”  So, after Reader’s Workshop we had a wonderfully engaging conversation about what the boxes were for, and each child that offered their suggestion said some form of rocket should be made!  Some of the children went over to the boxes to describe what we should do!

Then this afternoon while some friends continued to work on their paper towel tube rockets, some other friends drew plans for what they wanted the rocket to look like.  While these two things were happening, some friends started working on a mural with oil pastels.  They added some beautiful rockets to our mural.  Each week we will continue to add “space” objects to our mural as we learn about them.

The last thing that we did during our project work time was have a fun balloon rocket race.  The children tied two lines of fishing lines from one chair to another chair.  Then, we blew up balloons and attached them to two straws.  Then the children released the balloons and off they went!  It was so fun.  The children were counting down (like real countdowns) then cheering for both friends who were releasing the balloons.  After we cleaned up from our project work time, we had a great discussion about how this balloon experiment worked.  Emily said that when the air went out the balloon went forward!   Madeline S. said that it stopped when the air went out.  Then, Malachi offered some great connections to rockets in that he said it was just like when the gas and fire goes out of rockets-they stop!

What a wonderful day!!

Malachi, Isaac, and Selam working with Miss Kesler on some plans for our rocket!

Tevona doing a beautiful job drawing a rocket on our mural.

Miss Templeton helping Heaven and Madeline P. get ready for their balloon rocket race!

Today we had a lot of conversations about trees!  I noticed yesterday that a lot of friends were looking through the tree books and asking about roots.  “What are those?”  “What do they do?”  Today, with the help of white roses, we talked a little bit about roots.  During morning meeting, we added food coloring to jars of water and put the roses in them.  As a class we made predictions about what might happen.  Tylisha said she had seen it before and the flowers were going to change colors!  Some of the other friends agreed, but a few are still skeptical.  Check back in the next few days to see what happens!

What do you think will happen to the white roses?

Selah's tree

This afternoon, we celebrated the warm day and went outside to do observational drawings of the trees.  It was interesting to hear what the kids had to say about their noticings.  Max noticed the bark, or as he called it “skin” on the tree.  Wyatt noticed the buds at the end of the trees.  Selah noticed all the different branches.  They were so observant!

Wyatt was busy working on his tree drawing.

Salih was very focused on his tree.

Today Miss Robison and Mrs. Grotjan helped us make book pockets for our new classroom library. It holds books that we have made.

Miss Robison helped by sewing the pockets for us during studio.