What do you wonder?

Curiosity is an important part of every child's development, both in and outside of school.
Recently some of our students had the opportunity to get some of their questions answered by a special guest.

Our second grade teacher, Ms. Lisa Harman, shares:

Hoping to inspire curiosity and strengthen problem solving, one second grade class has started working on a weekly ‘Wondering’ question.  The idea was developed with the help of UVA students from Dr. Elgin Cleckley’s Design Thinking course.  The first question posed to students was “How many school buses are there for all of the ACPS?”  Students worked in pairs, groups, and individually to figure out their answers.  They shared their thought process with classmates and voted on the four answers whose processes they thought made the most sense.  

This week, Mr. Jim Foley, the Director of Transportation for ACPS, came to second grade to share information about our county’s school bus fleet. He also gave the students the actual answer: 220 buses!  Mr. Foley also shared the elaborate process for canceling school for weather events and answered other transportation questions.   It was an exciting way for students to check their work!  They are looking forward to next Wednesday’s Wondering! 

One group sharing their math work with the class.

Students count the buses on a diagram of those at Baker-Butler to get started on their calculations.

Jump Rope & Hoops for Heart success!

We are writing to share the great news about our recent Jump Rope and Hoops for Heart fundraisers!

Here is information from our PE teacher, Ms. Heeschen:

Jump Rope for Heart and Hoops for Heart are community service learning programs of the American Heart Association.  They teach students the importance of developing heart-healthy habits and that being physically active can be fun.  Our students also learn that raising funds to support cardiovascular research and education helps save lives in their community and across the country. 

We are so proud of our Baker Butler students for raising $14,795.70 for the American Heart Association. We surpassed our goal of $13,000, which is what we raised last year.   In addition to providing funding for heart research, our school will receive a $500 gift certificate to purchase PE equipment.  Stay HEALTHY everyone!

Great job, everyone!

A visit with Pan Clothing & a new design challenge

On Friday our school hosted the founders of Pan Clothing, Jacky and Tanner. It was a great visit, and our students enjoyed learning more about them and their mission to eliminate illiteracy.

They are both seniors at Hampden-Sydney College, and they founded Pan to improve the lives of elementary students in Haiti. They sell clothing, and for each item they will provide 5 textbooks to students in Haiti.

Through this process our students also learned about Haiti, and they compared & contrasted their lives in Charlottesville with students their age in Haiti.


Students in our third grade (Ms. Fagan & Ms. Graybill) and fourth grade (Ms. Wright & Ms. Roesch) classes spent time interviewing Jacky & Tanner. This was part of the Discover phase, which is the first stage of the DEEPdt (Discover, Empathize, Experiment, Produce) design thinking process. The students interviewed Jacky & Tanner to try to determine their needs, what they needed for their company, and what students in Haiti needed. The students took notes on lots of post it notes, and then they used graphic organizers to sort, to classify, and to organize their thoughts in common themes.

The students had a great first visit with Pan Clothing, and we are looking forward to their next two visits over the coming two months. The goal will be for our students to move through all 4 phases of DEEPdt process. The next steps will for students to Empathize what the needs are of Pan Clothing, and finally for them to Experiment and Produce solutions for these needs.

Our students are excited to design for Pan and to help students in Haiti.

We'll continue to share updates from this exciting new design thinking challenge with Pan in the coming months.

Students watching a video of Pan in Haiti

Students taking notes

Students classifying and organizing notes

Asking questions to Jacky & Tanner

Categorizing notes

Tanner answering questions from a design team

Classifying notes

Organizing a design team's notes

Collaborating and communicating

Discussing different points of views

Jump Rope & Hoops for Heart kick off

We're proud once again to partner with the American Heart Association for the Jump Roper & Hoops for Heart program. Our students will be fundraising over the coming weeks to raise money to raise funds for heart research.

Recently we had our kick off assembly, which included inspiring words from the American Heart Association, ways that our students can keep their heart healthy, teachers jumping rope, and a basketball contest between Mr. Johnson & Mr. Saunders.

Check out some of the pictures from the assembly, and if you're able please partner with our students for this important cause!