IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Ruth describes the life cycle of a worm.

Messi creates a worm.

Greetings! I am back from my professional development trip to Portland and I am so happy to be back! It was great to see all of the kids this morning and I got lots of hugs- definitely filled up my bucket. 🙂 The kids had lots of questions about the school I visited and what life in Portland, OR is like. We had many questions about what the children from Portland were like.

When I came in this morning, Da’Sean and Messi had news about the worms- they had eaten almost ALL of our leaves and newspaper in the compost bin. WOW! It took those worms only about a week to turn all of that material into rich, black, nutrient filled soil. The kids also remarked on the increase of egg cases on the worms- signs they have mated and are carrying baby worms! We pulled out a few worms to observe other changes. Miss Schmidt and I asked the kids to represent the changes in the worms using clay or various ribbons and string.

The more he eats, the fatter he gets! Ruth

And the longer he gets! Carriea

What if we twist those around? Its an egg case! They got an egg case! And when the eggs are inside, and when the case comes off it turns into… Messi

Its a cocoon and baby worms come out! Aidan

We knew that! Da’Sean

We all knew that! Tajanaye

My worms are gonna have eyes, but they don’t really have em. This one is long, this one is shorter. The long one ate more. Here’s an egg case! Tajanaye

I made five baby worms! How many hearts are there? Aidan

I made a little worm with five hearts. Regan

He doesn’t have hands or legs. He just has hearts! Aidan

It all starts with an egg case. Ruth

How many hearts are in one worm?

Carriea and Regan show off their worm and egg case.

Tags: collaboration, creativity, curious, garden, thinking

Carriea's How To!

Michael plants seeds in the planter.

Jenesis waters the seeds in our new planter.

Miss Barr reads the daily question with friends. “How long will it take our compost to disappear?”

Regan and Aidan do observational drawings of worms with Miss Roby.

We have been immersed in all things growing! This morning, Carriea was generous enough to bring in a “How to Grow a Plant” checklist and shared it with the class. This checklist is just what we needed to plant some of our seeds that friends have brought in. We followed Carriea’s checklist step by step.

First, you get a box.

Second, you get some dirt.

Third, you get two seeds. Then you put the seeds in the dirt.

Fourth, you put dirt in the water.

Fifth, you let the sun come out and then it will grow!

Tags: collaboration, creativity, garden, project

Our new daily agenda.

As we continue our study of clocks and telling time, we have decided to change something in our room- our daily agenda. We had an old daily agenda in our room, but it was not something we referred to often after the beginning of the year and the kids did not have much interest in it. Yesterday morning, a handful of friends helped me take down the old agenda and begin a new one. Our experiences at the lab school and in years at previous schools have shown us that if the kids have a part in creating something, they are far more likely to use and refer to it than if it is store bought or teacher created. The children helped me think of each part of our day in sequential order, such as morning meeting, writer’s workshop, lunch, math workshop etc. We then wrote them on strips of paper and added them to our new agenda board. Then, more friends helped illustrate pictures of each activity. During morning meeting, friends noticed something else that was new to the agenda- some clocks! Several drawings of clocks were added to different parts of the day to indicate when each part begins (relatively). After making these changes, Miss Schmidt and I noticed all day friends were referring to the agenda and checking the time. Success!

Tags: arithmetic, collaboration, time

Monica and Da'Sean try out a tunnel launcher.

Lucas and Christian create a bridge on the marble launcher.

Friday was an exciting day for us. As soon as the kids came in, they were begging to play with the blocks as a morning choice activity and continue working on their marble launcher. They began experimenting with different positioning of blocks and mini ramps to try to get the marbles to go faster down the chute. We had a class conversation about why many marbles didn’t quite make it down the whole chute. Zek suggested maybe we needed more force, like how cars and trucks had engines, we needed something like that for our marbles. Ruth suggested that maybe the cracks between each block on the chute were slowing down the marbles. Lucas suggested we had created too many obstacles in the chute and they were slowing the marbles. Later on in the day, during studio and explore, we tried putting some of these suggestions into place. First, we eliminated some of the obstables. Then, the kids found a new tunnel launcher for the beginning of the chute, which they positioned at a more severe angle to create more force. Last, Ruth led a group of friends to try taping down the cracks between the blocks to create a smoother chute. We found that our three improvements increased the speed and a friend even brough up that we should be timing our marbles. Perhaps we will do this next week!

We have also been enjoying our daily yoga sessions with Mrs. Williams so much. The kids have already learned so much and I am noticing, it helps create a calm atmosphere for math workshop.

Hutton's cobra pose.

Journey trying downward dog.

Tags: collaboration, experiment, problem solving, scientific method, yoga

Predicting and testing.

Ruth and Christian begin an investigation.

This afternoon during studio and explore, I noticed three friends, Jenesis, Ruth, and Christian, building very enthusiastically over in the block area. After observing for a while, it was evident what they were working very hard to create- a marble launcher! They noticed their marbles didn’t have enough speed to get to the end of their almost 8 foot launcher. After trying different things out independently, Ruth said, “I think it needs more force!” The kids agreed, and together, they lifted the beginning piece higher. Christian said, “It’s higher, and the marble is more powerful.” Jenesis agreed. Their enthusiasm for their project spread through the classroom. By the end of the afternoon, there were almost 10 kids working together to shoot multiple marbles across the launcher. All were working together, communicating with their words, after careful observation and trial and error.

The building continues.

The group is enthused! A second marble launcher begins…

Tags: collaboration, creativity, curious, design, friendship, motivation, problem solving