IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

This morning, friends were invited to a new provocation- the human ear. Various pictures of ears were placed throughout the room and friends were invited to draw what they saw. Each time our friends our invited to do an observational drawing such as this, Mr. Henderson and I are blown away by the attention to detail. The pictures are incredible. After our drawings, we sat as a class and talked about the concept of listening. What exactly is listening? Some friends shared…

Listening is listening and listening is respecting. Miles

Not to yell, but to listen. Cariah

With someone is talking, you don’t play. Messi

Listening is listening to a friend and your mom. Cariah.

You have to listen! Makenzi

Listening to them when they are talking. Lucas

Shouting is not listening. Makenzi

I just wanted to say that’s an agreement for peace. Cariah

Listening is hearing. Mrs. Argus

We will revisit this concept tomorrow with more provocations on sound. As teacher researchers, we are wondering if giving listening and sound significant and obvious roles in the classroom will improve our communication as a class.

Tags: capable, communication, friendship, problem solving, relationships

Today was a huge success! A big thank you to our parent volunteers and volunteers from Dow who came to support us. And most importantly, thank you to the kids who made it all possible! More pictures and stories to come soon. For now, ask your learner about their experience and enjoy these pictures.

Tags: Butler, capable, collaboration, garden, project, relationships, responsible

Save the Date for our Fall Carnival!

November 16th 6-8pm

crafts, food, face painting, games,silent auction

Please also let us know if you can volunteer for a 30 minute shift, donate a silent auction item, or connect us with vendors for pizza, plates, and small prizes.

We can’t wait to see you there!

Tags: family focus, family night, relationships

We have started a new tradition in our classroom: sharing appreciation. At the end of the week, we sit down as a class and talk about friends we appreciate and why. Its a time of such laughter and joy. We display many of the appreciations around our room to remind ourselves to always look for something positive in our friends. It has become many of our favorite part of the week (myself included). I have to share some of our appreciations from Thursday.

 I appreciate Christian because when its time for studio and explore and recess, he always plays with me and he makes nice cars. David

 I appreciate the chickens.  They always lay eggs for us. Aidan

  I appreciate this city. Because everyone in this city is nice to me. Journey

 I appreciate everyone that plays soccer with me at recess because they always let me play goalie. Cameron

 I appreciate Angela. Cuz shes already laughing! Jenesis

 I appreciate everyone because everyone is nice to me. Carriea

 I appreciate the garden because it gives us healthy food. Sascha

 I appreciate Cameron and Lucas because they play soccer with me at recess. Monica

I appreciate Regan because she always makes me laugh. Da’Sean

 I appreciate Lucas cuz hes always my best friend. Hutton

I appreciate the teachers because they let us play and they teach us stuff that we never heard and sometimes we learn new stuff that we didn’t know. Tajanaye

I appreciate Monica because she plays with me. David

I appreciate Michael and Aidan because when we go to recess we play police. Christian 

 I appreciate Sascha and Geneva because they hang upside down with me!  Journey

I appreciate Hutton because he plays with me and Cameron. Lucas

I appreciate Michael because we played run around the playground. Regan

Tags: capable, friendship, relationships

Aidan counts the friendship links. Does it match the number of pictures?

What a great day! I have to comment on how enthusiastic and well behaved the kids have been since we have been back from break. Today was no exception. Before break,  we began creating a board with pictures on it of people in our class showing friendship. There is a sign that reads, “What is friendship?” We also started keeping a chain which has descriptions of each friendship moment on it that is documented. This morning when he walked in, Aidan noticed almost immediately that there were new pictures. He and Monica talked about the new pictures. “But it they don’t match the chain, Mrs. Argus!” Aidan exclaimed. I asked him what he meant. “There are only six chains, but there’s eight pictures.” I asked Aidan how many chains with descriptions we needed to add. He counted the chains again, then the pictures. Then he looked at his hand and held out two fingers, one at a time, “Seven, eight. We need two more chains! I counted on!” Later in the day, Miss Schmidt led a discussion with our friends about both new pictures. One was Angela helping her friend Michael zip up his coat for recess. Another was friends helping assemble our unifix cubes in two groups of five, to equal ten unifix cubes-such great teamwork. We wrote a brief description of each event on a link, and added it to the chain.

David points out a new friendship picture to the class.

Our trip to Clowes Hall today was a lot of fun. The kids were excited to see Butler University and asked a lot of questions about college on the bus ride there and back. We saw the play, A Caterpillar, a Bear, and a Moonby Eric Carle which showcased many of our favorite Eric Carle characters through really neat looking black light puppets.

Carriea shares Angela's heavy load to the library.

Tags: Butler, friendship, project, relationships