(We started a new chapter book this week, but we hope you won’t rush out and get it to read at home. “My Father’s Dragon” is a story of a boy who helps a dragon, and each chapter ends with a cliffhanger. If your child already knows the book, or reads ahead, it can be really hard to resist giving away any information. We hope to help kids anticipate and think about what may happen in each chapter, so will appreciate if you refrain from reading at home until we’ve finished the book. It has 10 chapters, and we have six to go, so we’ll let you know more after it’s done. Thanks!)
Remember when we voted between creating an Office or a Boat Place in our playhouse? Last week, kids were reminded about the Boat Place idea, and we began talking and planning. This week, we’ve begun construction. We like to involve kids in all aspects of these kinds of transformations, from brainstorming to planning to executing ideas. The problem solving, collaboration, and fine motor work to create the space are as valuable as the imaginative play that happens there.
We started by asking kids in both our morning and JK groups more questions: What do we need in or on a boat? What do we need around a boat? What will we do on a boat? Kids had many ideas and we had several good grouptime discussions. Once we created the lists, we started to talk about how to create their ideas. Some could already imagine how to create the sky or water or sand, with ideas about tape or paint or paper. Here are some photos as we begin to transform the space.
We talked about defining the space, and whether the top or bottom of our playhouse should be our boat. Would the water or the boat be on top? We all decided the bottom could be the water and the top would be the boat. Teachers brought out some blue paper to hang in the bottom, and invited kids to decorate it with stencils and drawings of various fish and sea creatures. We asked kids to help draw and make plans of their ideas. We offered new items at the light tables to add to our underwater look.
Kids were keen to use the space, and arranged and rearranged the seats upstairs to create driving spaces and additional seats. Some decorated cardboard from our recycling bin to look like steering wheels, and some taped them on to the rails. Others wanted maps and spent time making and coloring those, then used them in their navigations. A group was taking turns to drive and to decide where to go on the boat. A few pretended to catch fish or collect treasure from the light tables below. We decided to use a piece of our paddle ball painting paper from the previous day to create the sun, and a teacher helped one child hang it.
We expect to add more elements in the coming days, including more paper water that kids painted in our Paddle Ball Painting project.
