IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

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  Angela mixes the avocados.

Creating together.

This morning as the kids came in, they were greeted with the aroma of fresh avacados. Friends were invited to watch the avacados be cut open, help  remove the green fruit, and mash it in preperation for guacamole. Each child had a chance to help mash and mix the green pulp into a smooth blend. After it was nice and creamy, we added some salsa (about half a jar) to the avacados and mixed some more. Then, we tried our creation! I was so proud, while not all of our friends loved the guacamole, all of them did try it with brave faces. Below are some of the descriptions from our friends.

Messi- “It tastes real spicy!”

Hutton- “Spicy!”

Ruth- “The guacamole is creamy.”

Zek- “Mine tastes like peanut butter.”

Da’Sean- “It tastes like popcorn.”

Aidan- “Its a little spicy, but I like it.”

David- “I didn’t like it cuz I tasted guacamole before and I didn’t like it.”

Lucas- “It tastes like an ice cube, it really did. I dipped it on the top and I got a big chunk like an ice cube.”

Regan- “It’s GOOOOOOOD!”

Monica- “It’s good and spicy! I ate all of mine!”

 A lot of interest was taken in the large avocado pits inside the fruit too. Friends asked, “Why are they so big?” “What are those things?” Jenesis held the pits up to her face and said, “Look, they look like eyes!” We decided we would try an experiment to see if we could get the avocado seeds to grow. At the end of the day, we placed each of the five avocado seeds inside a large plastic baggie with a wet paper towel. We decided to tape the baggies up against our windows in our classroom and outside in the hallway so they can get light and see if anything sprouts! We learned that the avocado seed could take up to 6 weeks to grow, so we will be practicing our patience.

Friends enjoy the end of our Mexico video and sample guacamole.

Kaitlyn and Lucas learn a new math game during math workshop today.

Tags: capable, collaboration, curious

Michael drives his car on 465.

One of our new materials in class is cars. We have a tub with various sizes and types of cars that the kids love making ramps for and building streets for. Today, I noticed several friends running their cars over maps we have set up in the classroom. Aidan was tracing a thick red line on our Indianapolis map on our wall. “Its driving!” Aidan and I talked about how the thick red line made a box around Indianapolis. I explained that its a very busy highway- the 465 Interstate! Michael came over and began tracing his car along 465 as well. I am really excited to see where this global, map, geography investigation takes our class.

Tags: capable, curious, inspiration

In addition to our Block A friends from Butler who come every Wednesday, we have another Butler class who visits us on a regular basis. They are part of an arts integration class through the college of education and are learning how to integrate the arts into our project work and regular curriculum. Every week, a small group of these students pull a group of our classmates and work with them on something related to flight. Last week, some of our friends learned an awesome song about a Bi-Plane. Today, our friends experimented with creating airplane wings and talking about the concept of lift when the wing was held in front of a fan- incredible!

Tags: capable, curious, design, paper airplane, project, think

Yesterday, the kids were excited to jump right back into creating our large, 24 foot airplane. Many friends helped one another construct walls for the plane’s fuselage, the body, out of cardboard and taped them together. We then moved to covering the remaining exposed roof of the plane on the cockpit and the tail. Lucas, Hutton, Monica, and Ruth worked together to make sure that before they fixed it on the top, the roof piece was centered and visually appealing. They enjoyed taking turns standing back and letting friends know whether to move the piece more to the left, more to the right, towards Mrs. Argus, and so on.  Once we had the pieces covering the cockpit and tail, Hutton said, “So now what?” Messi heard our conversation and excitedly shouted, “Our airplane needs wings!”

Friends measure the length of the box.

 More children joined us as we started our discussion on wings. Would they be small or large? Would they need to stand out straight from the plane or should they hang down? Where on the plane would we place the wings?   Ruth suggested we look at some of the different sizes of collected boxes in our room. After looking at different shapes and sizes, we decided on two large boxes, because we wanted large wings. I asked, “How do we know which is longer?” Monica suggested we measure them on the class number line on the floor. Messi and Hutton carried the first box over to the number line. Ruth explained that the box needed to start by where it said 1 so we knew how long the box was. After measuring both large boxes in this way, we discovered that they were both exactly the same size! We decided on using the nicer looking one that had less wear and tear.  Lucas came up with the idea to draw where the adult could cut out for the wings. He carefully drew the wing with a pencil, and then traced it over with a black marker. After the wing was cut out, we tested to see how it looked on the plane. The kids were pleased, and so was I! A great fit. Tomorrow, we will see if we can creat a symmetrical wing to match our first.

Very carefully drawing where the wing should be cut out.

Tags: arithmetic, capable, project

"We need to measure the airplane."

Each day when the kids enter the room, they sign in to let me know they are at school and answer the daily question.Today our daily question said, “How long is our airplane? 10 feet, 20 feet, or 30 feet?”This question brought up a lot of conversation on measurement and estimation during our arrival activities. What is a good estimation? How do you know when you’ve made a good estimation? How do we learn to become good estimators? While friends were pondering these questions and engaging in conversation, I began to notice several children grab a material and begin lining it up against the side of the airplane. I asked Sascha what she was doing. “We’re using the inch worms!” she exclaimed. “Why?” I asked. Journey answered for her friend, “We need to measure the airplane.” The two friends were using one of our math workshop tools, inchworms, which are little worms that are one inch exactly. Several other children noticed what the girls were doing and became interested.

Messi assists with the inchworm measurement.

Ruth explains why the inchworms should stop.

 

The friends agreed that Ruth was right, we could stop. “So now what?” Lucas asked. We decided next that we needed to count the inch worms to see how many inches the plane was across. Cameron and Carriea worked together to count. Cameron put his finger on each worm as Carriea said what number worm it was. As they got higher and higher, into the hundreds, more friends became excited and joined in the counting.

Cameron carefully marks the worms counted with his finger.

 

 The excitement grew as we counted more nad more worms. “Two hundred eighty, two hundred eighty-one, two hundred eighty-two, two hundred eighty-three!!!” The kids all cheered. 

So excited to count!

 

 “Wait a second! That number is not part of our daily question!” Lucas brought up a good point. Our class was stuck. How could we have counted two hundred eighty-three inches and not have that be one of the three choices on the daily question. Monica suggested, “It’s not in feet!”We then discussed what exactly a foot was and that there were twelve inches in a foot. A friend suggested we break up the inch worms in groups of twelve, to show how many feet. The kids were so paitient as we took turns breaking up the two hundred eighty-three inch worms into little groups and neatly placed them on the floor. After all groups were created, we counted them together. We counted twenty-three groups of eleven and a group of ten, so our airplane is approximately twenty-four feet long! WOW!

Two hundred eighty-three inches. WOW!

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: arithmetic, capable, curious, motivation, project, thinking