IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Sascha and her bee story.

Friends work on plant stories. The pastels are rich in color and smooth to write with!

Aidan reads the question to friends who come by. “What stories live inside plants?”

This morning, a large group of friends explored storytelling about plants through the use of pastels. The stories are a wonderful reflection of some of our learning about gardens and growth. Sascha and Aidan also chose to incorporate bees into their plant stories and had some interesting ideas about what bees do with flowers. This hopefully leads to an investigation!

The creation of the greenhouse!

We were also lucky enough to be given a mini greenhouse by a friend of the classroom. This morning, Messi, Da’Sean and Monica worked with our Butler friends to put it together. They even planted four different plants- carrots, eggplants, tomatoes, and onions- yum! Hopefully, the greenhouse gets the germination process started and we can eventually transplant the veggies to our actual garden.

We get a visit from some special friends- Butler Blue 2 and Butler Blue 3- Trip!

Tags: creativity, garden, project, story telling

This morning, Mr. Smith came over to me and told me there were lots of spring surprises in the courtyard. I shared with tour friends what I had heard and asked them if they would like to see if any changes had occured to the space. As we made our way to the courtyard, I heard exclamations of, “WOW! It’s growing!” and “Mrs. Argus- daffodills!” and many other words of excitement. We talked about how these changes had occured and made predictions as to whether or not we would see other changes as the weeks progress.

Tags: curious, garden, inspiration, project

Provocation for storytelling: What stories can you tell with these materials?

Angela carefully chooses some natural materials to tell her story.

Friends work to create a camping story with our natural materials.

During my trip to the Opal School in Portland, I learned about story provocation with materials. There is much being done at their school around Story Workshop. Story workshop is a process where children are encouraged to tell stories with rich materials placed thoughtfully throughout the room and are also guided with some questions as a provocation. We have introduced some natural materials on a new shelf that have greatly intrigued the children, including seed pods, branches, shells, and other things. We encouraged the children to ponder using the materials to tell a story. There is a question in a picture frame on the shelf that reads, “What stories could you tell with these materials?” Some of their stories have been so rich and interesting. (as you probably can see from the pictures above.)  Miss Schmidt and I also encouraged the kids to tell stories about worms with clay and watercolors. The question asked of them was, “Do worms have stories to tell?” Their creations have been incredible. Such imaginative and passionate stories have arisen from this question.

David and Christian work on telling worm stories with watercolor.

Monica’s incredible worm story involving a bird of prey.

Messi had a very interesting worm story about a male and female worm creating an egg!

Mr. Beery and friends work with stop motion animation to create a worm story.

Tags: creativity, curious, project, Reggio, story telling

This is going to be hard for me to resist and hard for me to forget.  Lucas

This quote brings so much warmth to my heart. These words were spoken by Lucas during our worm dissection with the wonderful Mrs. Grotjan and Miss Robison. Lucas’ words embody the essence of Reggio inspired, project based learning and what our goal here is at the Lab School- facilitate a love of learning. Today, our studio teachers gathered small groups of friends to engage in a detailed worm investigation that included a dissection. It proved to be a fascinating and captivating experience for all involved! Tomorrow, more friends will participate in the activity. I can’t wait to see what about the investigation interests them and what observations will come. More documentation on this incredible experience is coming.

The worm is captivating!

Messi and Cameron work as scientists.

Hutton investigates.

Journey and her worm.

Tags: capable, curious, garden, project, scientific method

Exploring our new sensory table material.

“Mrs. Argus- a flower!” Hutton

Cameron and Kaitlyn do drawings of their grass heads.

The grass heads are getting some sun.

What a fabulous day. We have a new material to explore in our sensory table- dirt! We are also becoming familiar with some gardening tools while we play with this. Our friends were also enjoying doing observational drawings of the many plants and new growth around the room. Hutton even pointed out a blossom on a plant that has been in our room quite a while! Perhaps we will look into why this blossom just sprouted recently. We have also created grass people. These people look like heads that have been stuffed with pine shavings and grass seed. We dipped them in water and placed them upright on a sunny table in our room. We are hoping the grass will grow and look like hair! Each day, it will be the kids’ responsibility to document what has happened to their “head” and draw a picture showing any changes, just as a scientist would.

Tags: curious, garden, project, scientific method