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t is for tracks

my idea was to have trays of fine colored sand to move trains through to make tracks. i even matched the train cars with the color of sand. i didn’t expect it to stay seperate, but i was curious how long it would.

the children were interested in this for about 15 minutes. then they began scooping and piling it up.

by the next day, i released and added cups and spoons. it was like 6 zen gardens. there was quiet, quiet work of spooning sand from tray to cup, from cup to tray.

children, the best leaders.

f is for float your boat

during our t is for transportation week, we looked at our world map. i would suggest two countries and ask how we could travel from one to the other. let me tell you now that these children BELIEVE they COULD build a bridge across the ocean. they BELIEVE that there are strong enough materials to go the miles to the ocean floor. they BELIEVE that there are cables strong enough to hold from one pole to another. i started to believe that maybe it could happen.

but until it does, how could we get from the USA to Indonesia? well, a plane or a boat were the two realistic options we came up with (yes, dolphin and pegasus nearly made the top list).

before heading off to make airplanes, i gave each a piece of foil. the beauty of foil is that any way it is folded or scrunched, it will float (until it gets water logged). so we made foil boats…and floated them.

t is for transportation

oh, how i wish model magic was more affordable! since it isn’t, our friday class was the group to sculpt transportation.

we named the colors, counted together as i cut them apart (since that couldn’t be done ahead of time in fear of it hardening), then gave each child a plate of pieces. there were toothpicks and googly eyes (so our transportation vehicles might look like the ones in richard scarry books!)

i didn’t sense frustration as i watched them sculpt, mimic each other, or go new directions.

introducing transportation by the friday class:

i wish i had recorded the names of their transportation vehicles. i know there were ships, boats, cars, trucks, vans, airplanes, rockets, trains…and some creatively named vehicles!

s + h is for sheep

nothing like those silly sheep in a jeep to mesmerize a bunch.

we used our fists in this little chant again:

here is S (one fist)

here is H (the other fist)

pound them together (do just that!)

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (make a long /sh/ sound)

s is for skyscraper

masking tape strips on our unit blocks encouraged tower building. i turned one of our mirrors over to give a hard cement-colored surface.

we collected cartons and boxes for making our own skyscrapers.

it looked like christmas eve watching ms. vilia wrap all the cartons with manila paper.

then the children cut and glued windows in as straight of rows as possible .

we poked skewers in the top using tape on the end as radio antennas (and as an attempt to avoid getting eyes poked out).

we introduced the concept of a “story” being a book but also being the floor of a building or house.

this project was strips of paper (with windows pre-drawn by me and photocopied) that were glued together. preschoolers could choose to make their skyscraper have as many stories as they like. some children (like my own) stopped after the second story.

the children’s skyscrapers were correlated with their ages. i didn’t expect that. the younger ones simply stopped sooner and got back to work time (free choice time in the classroom). the pre-k kids stayed the longest.

they would run up and down the hall getting more paper strips and glue. we had to make more copies twice. they were counting their stories over and over.

i think there was succes for some in making their skyscraper taller than they are.