IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

On Friday, Dylan and Jackson were experimenting more with the cup phones. Dylan invited Ayden over to join them. He inserted one of the phones inside the other, creating a 3 way connection. The boys tried it out and were excited to discover that they could hear one another! They invited another friend, and another, to continue adding connections. Pretty soon, about half the class was involved with the multi way connection phone. They troubleshooted and problem solved together when connections were lost and broken and celebrated when they could hear one another or each other’s vibrations on the string.

Tags: collaboration, inspiration, project, sound

This morning, the class explored different ways to create sound. They were also encouraged to write what sounds they heard and to answer the question, “What is sound?”. We had some great discussions on sound waves and vibrations, as well as how the ear works. We are excited to take this a step further tomorrow and look more deeply into the concept!

Tags: collaboration, creativity, curious, inspiration, project, sound

This morning, Ms. Simpson gave me four Hedge Apples she found on her way to school. What’s a Hedge Apple, you ask? That’s what we were trying to figure out all day! The odd looking, wrinkly fruits are green and fresh smelling, and come from certain trees located in the Meridian-Kessler neighborhood. We presented them to the kids this morning and asked them, “What is a Hedge Apple?” After a little bit of research and talking to some other adults who knew of the strange fruit, we learned that some people believe Hedge Apples have special powers- particularly keeping away spiders and insects. Friends were then inspired to create their own magic Hedge Apple stories throughout their free time and during Story Workshop. We hope to learn more about these intriguing things Monday!

Tags: curious, garden, inspiration, story telling, story workshop

Today, we put our plan into action- we cleaned up the garden! We put our gardening gloves on and talked about the difference between weeds and plants and went to it. Old plants were put into the compost bin to rot and become fresh organic matter and soil that will help our garden grow next year. Friends loved getting their hands dirty and doing some hard work! Mr. Henderson and I are finding that our class has a special interest in our outdoor space- just like last year! This is interesting because gardening was one of our large class project. We are wondering if the children will become more and more interested and this profound affection for the garden will develop into something more…

At recess today, the kids continued discussion about living things in the garden and dug up worms! Many, many friends, including ones that are not in our class, were enthralled with the idea of finding worms and placing them in the “worm hotel”. Some friends from last year even shared that they knew that worms could be beneficial to our garden.

Tags: capable, garden, inspiration, responsible

Evey morning, we have share time as part of our morning meeting. This morning started with sharing about the State Fair and family outings. Then a friend called on Regan to share, and she said something a little different.

“I think we should have, like jobs.”

After hearing a chorus of “yeahs!” We delved a little deeper to find out what exactly Regan meant by jobs. She shared that our class had jobs last year and she would like to see that continued. I then presented the kids with a question, “Well why do we need jobs?” Friends expressed the desire to keep our room tidier and assist in caring for the room. Then Sascha brought up an interesting math problem. She said, “Well we have more kids than last year, so we will need to have more kids doing each job. Last year we had 20 kids doing a job and it was 2 kids for a job. This year, we may need to do like 3 kids for a job, because we have more than 20.” Messi suggested something else, “Well what if some jobs had 2 people, and some had 3, and some had 2, and some had 3?” Bea shouted, “Like a pattern?!” Then another friend brought up another point. Tajanaye said, “Well what if we don’t want to do jobs everyday? Like just some days?” This led us to a discussion about whether or not jobs should be done every day or on rotating days. Friends took turns sharing their opinion and mentioned when they supported one another’s ideas. After a while of sharing opinions, Jo’Vyon suggested something- “We should take a survey.” With Jo’Vyon’s suggestion, we decided to vote on whether or not we would have jobs every day or on rotating days. By a little bit, we decide on having jobs every day. Later on, we revisited our conversation about jobs. It goes as follows.

Why should we have jobs? Mrs Argus

Because its like grownups jobs. Beatrice

So our room will look more tidy. Lucas

The people that clean want it to look nice. My grandma has a job. Tajanaye

My dad works at Fishers High School. Maria

My mom is a lawyer and gets people outta jail. Miles

My dad works on cars and fixes them and gets paid. BreAnna

My mommy works at a food place and a doctor place. Amiah

My grandma works at IPS, she helps people learn. J’Den

My mom is a doctor and helps kids, too. Beatrice

My dad is going back to college to be a nurse. Lucas

My dad, he works at Angie’s list! Dylan

My mommy is a nurse. Messi

Our conversation could have kept going, the kids were so enthusiastic to share about loved ones that they knew with jobs. I am wondering if Regan’s simple idea could turn into a larger investigation on jobs and their purpose… tune back to see!

Tags: collaboration, creative, inspiration, responsible