IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Friends work togther to build half meter long cube sticks.

I have some awesome learning to share from Wednesday. Wednesday morning, our class resumed our conversation on how to figure out how big our T-Rex was in real life. Several friends showed us how they had figured out how to mark a half meter by creating sticks of unifix cubes that were 50 cm long. We knew it was important to have this measurement, but we weren’t sure what to do next. We decided to take a closer look at our picture we were working from with the scale. We re-read that 1cm = .5 meters. Lucas asked, “Well how many centimeters is the picture?” Beatrice and Ayden knew, “21!” Then Lucas suggested, “Let’s make 21 sticks and lay them out. That’s how big!” Friends agreed that this would be the best way to represent our T- Rex. They demonstrated teamwork as the entire class enthusiastically began building sticks of equal lengths. Friends problem solved on how to check to make sure the sticks were equal. Some chose to re-measure them with a ruler, some compared them to others, some insisted on counting them each time and made sure they each had the same amount. When we finally had 21, we had a decesion to make. “What now?”

Teamwork!

Addie looks down the row, its getting longer!

Going off of Lucas’ suggestion, friends began taking turns connecting each of the pieces to create one, long line. The kids were paitient as we fixed breaks and troubleshooted directional problems. The cubes began to extend beyond our carpet area, past our word wall, and beyond. Miles enthusiastically predicted, “Its going to go out of the room! Its so big!” And Miles was right, our T-Rex ended up being SO big that it extended out of the classroom. WOW! After admiring our work in the morning, we decided to switch out the breakable cubes for something a little more permanent- tape. We laid down tape in place of the cubes to mark how long the T-Rex was and had fun decorating it with T-Rex-es and dinosaur words. Make sure you come check it out next time you are at school!

Longer!

BreAnna adds a half meter to the dinosaur.

Right out the door!

Tags: arithmetic, capable, collaboration, problem solving, project

Lucas and Jackson explore Dino World.

Dylan, Ayden, Jackson, and Hutton enjoy playing with the dinosaurs in Dino World.

Beatrice and Maria use watercolor to represent dinosaurs.

Addie paints a water dinosaur.

Today, our class looked an 8.5 x 11 picture of a T-Rex from the Children’s Museum. We talked about how the picture was just a representation of how big the actual dinosaur was- we knew he was much bigger than the size of the paper! Mr. Henderson and I challenged the kids with a simple question-  how could you show us how big a T-Rex really was? We pointed out there was a scale on the picture of 1centimeters = .5 meters and allowed the children to explore various measurement tools in our classroom. Some friends went straight to the rulers and yardsticks, some went for more non-conventional forms of measurement: using bears, unifix cubes, and looking closely at our dinosaur toys. One of the most exciting things about an inquiry like this is the conversation that happens while we are wrestling with new ideas. Many of our friends chose to work in pairs or small groups and talk through their thinking with one another. While we didn’t quite solve the mystery today, we will resume our work tomorrow and pick up where our thinking left off!

Here are a few snippets of insight from our friends.

I’m trying to see how many bones he has to measure him. 20 bones! He has 20 bones! Beatrice

If a T-Rex is a meter, that means he would be 100 centimeters. Lucas

I think he would have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 centimeters. Because that’s half of this stick. Makenzi (talking about half of the ruler’s 30 centimeters AND making the connection that we need half of something- incredible!)

We have to see how close it can be to the cubes. Dylan

Its very interesting! Jackson

J’Den measures our picture.

Maria and Amiah use the plastic dinosaur figurines to get a measurement.

Beatrice checks her measurements.

Jackson, Dylan, and Regan are on to something… they line up the yard sticks along the floor…

More friends work together to line the sticks along the floor.

Tags: arithmetic, capable, collaboration, problem solving, project

Mr, Henderson, Jo’Vyon and Addie created dinosaur tracks.

Sascha creates a triceratops head! We learned their big head protected them by intimidating other creatures.

This morning, some friends noticed that our morning message looked a little funny- it had lots of interesting looking words and pictures on it. During morning meeting, we took a closer look at the message- it was Dinocabulary! The chart had three categories each written with a Latin word part and a picture of its meaning. We learned that dinosaurs names come from Latin and they often describe traits about the dinosaur. For example, triceratops means three horned face. Tyrannosaurus Rex means tyrant king! We tried building some of our own dinosaur names for fun- and loved it. Tomorrow, we will make our own dinosaur word generators.

Dinocabulary!

Messi tries out a new dinosaur name.

Dinocabulary!

Tags: curious, project

Cameron picks fresh lettuce.

Mrs. Argus shows friends how to pick from the basil plant.

Aidan and Carriea pick lettuce.

Ruth washes our lettuce!

Regan tries the salad spinner.

Fresh garden salad- finger lickin good!

“I give this salad two thumbs up!” Michael

Zek enjoys his salad. He ate two bowls!

Pesto party!

Slurp slurp slurp!

Tags: capable, garden, project, responsible

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