IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

 

Addie and Makenzie tell stories with wild animals during story workshop.

Lucas, Beatrice, and Jackson tell stories together with their animals.

We had another great day at the Lab School. Our friends are adjusting to the routines and schedule of the day and transitioning well. Right now during Story Workshop, we are talking about what stories are. This week, we are encouraging the kids to use various materials to tell stories (fictional and real). Using materials helps the kids verbalize their story, which in turn will help them when they go to put their story down on paper. Yesterday, we story told with little plastic bears. Today, friends were invited to use wild animal figurines and barnyard animal figurines. It was so fun listening to everyone share! Later this week, friends will be invited to use multiple materials throughout the room. They will also be encouraged to write and draw pictures of their piece after they have created their story. I have already seen such creativity and enthusiasm in story telling this year so I know this process will be beneficial in helping us develop as stronger writers.

BreAnna and Cariah experiment with the light table.

We also enjoyed exploring more of our classroom today. The light table was a big hit with many friends. It was neat to see BreAnna, one of our older students, showing some of our kindergartners how to use the light table. She even helped create a piece with several younger students. Such wonderful collaboration.

Tags: creativity, story telling, story workshop

Friends write letters to Mrs. Obama.

Last week, we read a book about school gardens. The kids had so many connections to make with the book it was incredible. One of the things the book mentioned was that Mrs. Obama was a huge supporter of victory gardens and school gardens. One of our friends suggested, “We should tell her about our garden!” The rest of the class was very enthusiastic about this idea. This morning, we made a list of things we could tell Mrs. Obama about our garden. We also decided we would like to try to convince her to come to the Lab School and teach her about worm composting and our chickens. We are working on first drafts and eventually will turn these into final copies we feel proud of to send to the White House. Who knows what will happen?

We are also exploring the world of 3 dimensional shapes this week. Today, friends were invited to create different types of shapes. We then explored their attributes as a group and categorized them. We ended up coming up with two large categories that our shapes could fall into.

Zek and his group work to create 3 dimensional shapes.

Tags: chickens, collaboration, creativity, garden, project

Regan notices our pea pods have formed in our garden!

Releasing our butterflies!

Go, butterflies go!

Journey creates butterfly puppets during story workshop.

Sascha and Journey begin to form their story. “I know Sascha’s butterfly is going to be the little one, and that is part of the problem! We have to work out the rest!” Journey

Hutton is inspired by Sascha and Journey’s puppets and creates an ant and a queen bee during Story Workshop.

Tags: creativity, garden, project

This afternoon, we got to share our chicken knowledge with a second grade class. They seemed very interested and impressed with what we had to share. I was so proud of our friends.

Friends measure our garden plants.

Michael measures the Rosemary. Its eight inches!

We also broke into small groups and measured specific plants in our school garden. Each week, we will graph their growth. We hope to compare certain plant types to one another and discuss why they are growing the way they are.

Today, some friends hosted a Block Roll competition. Ask your child what this was all about!

Friends run and organize the Block Roll competition.

Lately, our class has been very into organizing class events during studio and explore. The other week, friends organized multiple plays for others to attend and watch. I remember during the beginning of the year, friends would sing songs for others. Today, friends organized what they called a Block Roll competition. It was really neat to see the kids organize and orchestrate this class competition on their own. We had so much fun!

Tags: chickens, collaboration, creativity, garden, project

This week during math, all of our classes are learning about the meaning of money and investigating pennies. Each class had a special “sale” today that involved children spending a number of pretend pennies to build a particular item. Our class created worm puppets! Each child had a shopping list yesterday and had to choose which types of embellishments they wanted to add. It’s important to note that the embellishments cost different amounts of pennies and the children didn’t have enough pennies to purchase all of the items. The kids practiced prioritizing! Today, the kids were given ten pennies and their shopping list to look over. They then took their shopping list to the worm store and purchased materials to create their worm puppets. Very exciting! After the puppets were assembled, we took them outside and introduced them to our garden space.

Fighting worm puppets. Scary!

Enjoying our garden space.

Regan and her worm!

Tags: arithmetic, creativity