IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

I just wanted to tell everyone that I hope you have a wonderful Spring Break! I will really miss the children while they are away, but know that the time will fly by and soon we will be back studying space!!

Take care!

Something wonderful happened during Free Choice and Writer’s Workshop today.  Today the kids wanted to write a play.  I suggested writing something about trees and Wyatt came up with a beginning of a story.  We have been talking a lot about problem-solution writing, (each story has a problem that needs to be fixed and a solution that fixes it.)  Wyatt suggested that we write a play that was set in a forest.  The problem is that the animals are littering.  He also shared that one animal comes in with a solution, teaching the other characters how to recycle!

So we went with this idea of the play during Writer’s Workshop.  I encouraged the kids to use materials such as watercolors, clay, tree “cookies”, and dry erase boards to help tell parts of their story.  We talked about how we can all come up with ideas over the next two days and then start to create a play to perform.  It was amazing to see their creativity and the beginning of our play take shape!

Max was creating a porcupine as one of the characters in the play.

BreAnna created the Litter Bug who causes the problem in the play.

Reid was sculpting other characters for the play.

Tyler and Salih created the magical entrance to the forest, the setting for the play.

We had a special visitor this afternoon.  Today we had an arborist come in from Keep Indianapolis Beautiful.  Nate, our arborist (as the kids referred to him), taught us all about what happens when trees get injured.  Our skin heals itself and grows new cells, trees do something different.  Instead of growing new cells, trees grow new bark to try to cover up the wound.  So years and years later you can look at a tree and see it trying to heal or see the wound in a tree stump!  The kids were fascinated by this.  It got even better when we went outside to walk around and look at trees outside of our school.  We had a few wounded trees to study!

Nate was explaining the wounded tree to us.

We also got to talk a little bit more about the rings in the tree "cookies."

The time has flown by and I cannot believe that we are going to be on Spring Break after tomorrow! First of all, I wanted to say that I have been having so much fun learning about space with the students. I love that we are in this environment where we are all learning about space and all that it offers together.

The space suits are done! We are going to begin to put them on tomorrow and take some pictures, but the class picture will be taken after break when we have all of the children present.

In Math Workshop this week we have been exploring base ten blocks and why we use them. The children at first had a hard time understanding what “ones”, “tens” and “hundreds” meant but are slowly beginning to understand what it looks like when you break the number up.

At the end of the day today, our class began a lively debate: are dandelions flowers or weeds? Friends have been encouraged to bring in dandelions and weeds (with your permission) for investigation tomorrow. We plan to see if we can prove one way or the other. Who knows- maybe we will be planting dandelions in our garden…

Also, please check your child’s folder tonight- there is information regarding our field trip to the Butler University Farm and Greenhouse!

Tags: garden, inquiry, problem solving, project

We have started getting some spacesuits back from getting embroidered and oh my goodness…they look amazing! Pictures coming soon!

The research the children are doing on planets is just fantastic! Today some friends used the computer to seek out some of the answers to their research questions. When we were sharing out the information we learned, a lot of friends were sharing how long it took their planet to orbit the sun. Oliver said it took 30 Earth Years for Saturn to orbit the sun. Heaven said it took 88 days for Mercury to orbit the sun. Then I asked why that was the case. Why does it take Saturn so long to orbit but Mercury not that long? After some friends shared their ideas we got up and made the question a little more visual.

I had Heaven be the sun. Oliver stood where Saturn should be. Emily stood where Mercury should be. Jonah stood where Uranus should be. Then they started to orbit the “sun”. Jamari noticed Emily got around the circle quickly, but Jonah was only about half way around the sun. Then everyone started sharing that the farther away you are from the sun the longer the orbit! What great connections the children are making!