IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today we got an email from Miss Schmidt’s class asking if we would like to be individual pen pals and learn about one specific friend. We decided we would definitely like to do that! We let them know that we would like to start as soon as possible- and will be starting tomorrow! How exciting!

We also had an oppurtunity to write some mail to Mr. Henderson, our former student teacher. Miss Crume, a student teacher in Miss Cegielski’s room and friend of his, let us know that he would love to hear from us. We had a nice conversation about being homesick and what that may feel like (Mr. Henderson is all the way in Portland, OR) and talked about how we could use supportive, positive words to brighten his day. We wrote individual notes and also write him a big class note asking him about his new class and what Portland is like. We hope to hear back from him soon.

Lastly, Jackson’s mom, Mrs. Bauer, recently shared an incredible website called POSTCROSSING.com On the website, you register and then gain access to an address where you can send a postcard to. The amazing part is the addresses are just about everywhere in the world! Once you send a postcard to a new friend, you receive a postcard from someone (also a new friend). Today, we received our first ‘assignment’ from Postcrossing- and we got to write to a person in Bulgaria! We had a chance to look up Bulgaria on a world map and will be talking more about the Atlas in the coming days. We are so excited to see where our first postcard arrives from!

Tags: collaboration, community, culture, curious, friendship, mail, pen pals, student teacher, world

We had quite the day today! This morning, the kids were challenged to think deeply about our morning question: Are we more the same or more different? It turns out, our class was split almost 50/50 on the issue. We talked, debated, and listened to one another’s opinions regarding the question- a great conversation. Because we were so split on the issue, we decided to email another class to ask their opinion. On the big screen, we constructed an email to a class at Guion Creek Elementary with a familiar face in it- Miss Schmidt. For those of you who were with us last year, Miss Schmidt was our beloved student teacher who was in our room for almost the entire year. We introduced ourselves to her class and asked what their thoughts were on the question. To our delight, Miss Schmidt’s class responded back to us during the day and had their own question for us too. They said,

“Dear Mrs. Argus’ Class,

We look different, we’re different colors and some of us are girls and some of us are boys.  But we’re the same because we’re all human and even though we’re made different we’re still the same.

We go to Guion Creek Elementary School.  Do you know about mail?

Love,

Miss Schmidt’s Class”

Their email led us to a conversation about mail and how we could continue to communicate with this class. I am hoping this communication will help fuel our conversations on similarities and differences, community, and respect for humankind. We were able to email them back and told them what we knew about mail. We asked if it would be if we mailed them something too. We are looking forward to an email tomorrow from them!

Today during Math Workshop, we read the classic story, How Big is a Foot? about standard and nonstandard measurement. We had fun dramatizing the story as it happened and then tried out the king’s strategy from the story- measuring items around our room with a cutout of our actual feet. Upon experimenting with the feet, the kids started to notice differences between their measurements because of the size of their feet. How interesting…

Tags: arithmetic, collaboration, community, curious, email, friendship, letters, mail