IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

So, today at the end of the day as we were cleaning up from Story Workshop, I was asking trivia questions to those that were waiting while others cleaned up. One of the questions was “Who was the first president of the United States?” So many hands raised with excitement. One friend said, “Obama.” Another friend said, “Mitt Romney!” I said, “Those are both great responses but it is not either of those. This president lived a really long time ago.” Isaac said, “When you were born?” (directed at me) *sigh* HAHA….I then told them that it was George Washington, and they were stunned. This was a brief but fun moment…

Today, I helped Jason edit the movie as he is our editor. He and I watched each short video and decided which “take” was our best work. It was such a great hands on lesson on rough draft, edit, revise (we are doing that tomorrow because there were some “takes” that we need to reshoot), and our goal is the final draft. Tomorrow we are going to reshoot the three scenes Jason thought we needed to revise. This is a great example of project work helping us accomplish those standards we need to cover but in such a meaningful way!

Mr. Harris talking about games.

We were lucky enough to have a guest speaker come into our classroom to talk about games this afternoon.  Mr. Harris, who is a lab school parent, but also works at Butler University in the ticket office, came in to talk to us about games.  He is around lots of games everyday.  Here are a few quotes from this afternoon’s chat.

Why do you like games? -Max

I like to play games because of the people.  i enjoy spending time with my family and friends. -Mr. Harris

How did you start playing games? -Kristien

When I was a kid we used to play games with my mom and dad.  We played games like memory and Candy-land.  Now that I’m a grown up I try to play those games with my kids too.

Mr. Harris also left us with a thought that attaches to what we have been talking about A LOT with our project.  “It’s not so important that you win or lose, it’s important that you have fun.  Even more than having fun, games and sports are a good opportunity to be an example.  No matter how small or how big you are it’s important to remember that.”

Yesterday at the Rhythm Discovery Center, we learned that forte means loud and piano means soft. Today, we experimented with dancing to music that was forte and piano. When the music got really loud, friends were encouraged to make their bodies “big”, reach tall, and do big movements. When the music was piano, we crouched down low, were quiet, and made small movements.

Tags: curious, music, project, sound

Today we began filming our puppet show movie! Before we even began filming the show, we sat in a circle, and we each took a turn filming the person next to us. The children were so excited to film each other and LOVED watching the whole slide show together.

I thought we would only get a 3 or so out of 14 scenes done today, but we did them all! The children LOVED filming, setting up props, speaking in puppet voices, being the director. They really did such a nice job taking turns, practicing, etc.

Tomorrow I will be editing the scenes with Jason because he is our editor and then Friday we will reshoot any scenes that we think need to be done again.

I cannot even tell you how fun this process was today. Seeing the children so excited about something that they thought of is such a thrill!

Today, Reid and William from Mrs. Clark’s class came down and shared with us that we will begin recycling again at our school. The children asked some great questions about what to recycle and were really respectful!

Today, during free choice time, two students from Mrs. Clark’s class came and spoke with our class about recycling. Mrs. Clark’s friends and Miss Cegielski’s friends are heading up our school’s recycling program. They came around to each class to talk about why we need to recycle and what each class can do. They also dropped of a recycling box. As of today, any paper that would otherwise be thrown away will now be thrown in the recycling box. On Fridays, a team from Mrs. Clark’s class and/or Miss Cegielski’s class will come to collect our recycling. We’re excited to be a part of our school’s initiative to better care for our environment!

William and Reed come by to talk to our class about recycling and drop off our recycling box.