Following the Child's Lead in Play

Well today I learned about following the child's lead in play - and the scuff marks on the knees of my pants will show this!

On Monday I introduced a prop box with fire jackets, helmets, axes, a hose, walkie talkie, pictures of fire, and play fire extinguisher.  Many children dove into dramatic play putting fires out all over the classroom.  Yesterday, my practicum student brought in a prop box that she had made and it had some great ideas.  One was that she made maps of Calgary and the children were reading them and determining where the fire was.

Some comments we recorded were:

• "Oh where is the fire?  Here it is, the fire is in Ranchlands.  We need to go there."
• "I see fire up here.  We need to go this way to put out the fire."
• "We can't go yet!  We haven't looked at the map!  Firefighters look at the map for a long time first.  Then we can go."

 My practicum student also turned the box that she used to store the firefighter materials into a fire engine!  This sturdy plastic container was just the right size for our 3 and 4 year olds and guess what my job was?  To push the fire truck around the classroom as the children followed the map and put out fires.  The knees on my pants were very worn by the end of the day!

 What a wonderful opportunity for following the child's lead in play!  They invited me to join in and as they directed me around the room I could hear their conversations, support their play, and be a part of their learning.  This was a child lead activity and it reminded me of the importance of supporting and scaffolding these experiences.

 We had a fire house dog and it helped rescue other dogs and cats from places.

We put blue streamers and card stock on the art table so that the children could make their own hose to play with and bring home. 

 

 One child discovered this tube in our class.  Yesterday the 4 year old classes were using it as a fire pole for the little firefighters.  This 3 year old child thought it worked great as a fire hose!  It is fun to see the different classes use the materials in creative ways.

Saving animals from trees was important work as well.  We even had a child dress up in our cat costume and call to be rescued.

Working together to put out a fire in this house.  Someone had burned the pizza they were cooking and called the fire department!

 We also learned that smoke can be very dark and flashlights are important tools for firefighters.

I did get a helper in our afternoon class!  She was determined to push her friend around!

Again, not all of the children were engaged in playing firefighters. Some were in the sand table, others painted and explored playdough.  But, I hope that this provides you with some ideas of exploring fire safety and firefighters!

"I Think it is Time we Learned about Fire Safety"

Today we began our project exploring Fire Fighters and Fire Safety.  Several children in my class have been asking for several weeks to explore this and entered our classrooms with big smiles because "Finally we are learning about Fire Fighters".  I like to do Fire Safety once a year to explore ways of keeping safe from fire and to help the preschoolers get a clearer sense of why we do fire drills.

Setting the Stage:
Children know that fire fighters put out fires.  But, why do they wear a mask, jackets, oxygen tank, and boots?  What is the ax for?  What is a hydrant?  What other equipment does a fire fighter need?  Are girls fire fighters too?  What happens during a forest fire or grass fire?  Do helicopters and airplanes  help put our fires?  These are some questions that we are beginning to ask and investigate!


Some children began to explore fire fighters through pretend and dramatic play.  I found these fire fighter boots at Walmart!  We explored how boots would keep a fire fighter's feet safe.

Fire helmets and jackets were an important part of their creative play.

Some children made their own fire hoses to play with.  They glued blue streamers inside a piece of cardstock.  We then rolled it up and stapled it!  They used it to put fires out all over our classroom.

I laminated some pictures of fire and put sticky tack on the back.  The children could move the pictures around the classroom and take them down when the fire was put out.

After discussion with the staff, we decided to not put out the toy fire hall for the children.  I don't mind the toy, but I wondered if it restricted the children from using their imaginations and creativity.  You don't have to "Grow Your Brain" and create a fire hall if it is already there.  The children did  noticed that a fire hall was missing, but an essential part of playing fire fighter.  We discussed some ways to solve this problem and decided that blocks would be the best way to create our own fire hall.  One child suggested that a fire hall needs a pole for the fire fighters to go down to their fire engines.  He and I discovered that a wrapping paper tube would be a perfect pole!  Our little fire fighters could fit inside!  Together we used our imagination and it was interesting to observe the symbolic representation and pretend play that occured!

This is the fire hall that was built in our block corner today. 

Are Egg Shells Weak or Strong?

The children at school wanted to spend some time celebrating Easter.  We went on an Easter Egg Hunt, decorated eggs, and did some science! 

I asked the children if they thought that egg shells were weak or strong.  Most of the children said "weak" because "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall... Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!"  I asked them what would happen if I squished an egg shell in my hand or jumped on it with my feet.  They responded, "It would break!"

Then I asked, "Do you think the eggs are strong enough to hold up these blocks?"  Some said, "Yes", others "No" and some "Maybe".  We made predictions on how many blue and red cardboard boxes we could stack on the shells before they broke.  I set 3 half egg shells up in a triangle shape.

We stacked 10 of the cardboard boxes on and that was more then all of our predictions!

Then we tried the heavier wooden blocks.  The children determined that these heavier blocks would break the eggs.  Their predictions were correct! 

We learned that eggs are stronger then we thought.  When we put the blocks on gently they didn't break but if we were rough and dropped the block on the egg shattered.  The same thing happens when we drop one on the ground!  Humpty Dumpty!



Travel by Plane and Airports

During the month of March my preschool set out to explore Travelling by Plane and Airports!  For the last month or so I had been observing and documenting (with a tiny bit of jealousy!) how many of the children were travelling by plane, the stories of where they went, and the excited tales of the places they were going.  We heard about Hawaii, Mexico, Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, Hong Kong, China, Texas, Disney Land, and Colorado.  Airports were being built, planes were constructed, and pictures were being drawn to decorate the classroom.  My co-workers and I thought that a project on airplanes and airports was an obvious choice based off the needs, interests, and abilities of the children!

First Steps:

To begin our project, my co-workers and I began to brainstorm a planning web including our own experience and knowledge on the topic, the children's current knowledge, and ideas for the different learning areas and centres in our room.  We included language and literacy, music, science, gym and movement, water, sand, art, group times, dramatic play, and writing.  We also knew of a parent who was a pilot and planned to invite a REAL PILOT to the classroom.  

A big part of our project was transforming our dramatic play centre into an airplane!  We set up chairs, a cockpit for the pilots (with 2 pilot costumes, pictures of real cockpits, and computer keyboard controls), and had luggage available.  

 

We also added items such as sunglasses, cameras, and hats to wear on vacation.

And, we always keep writing materials within our dramatic play centre.  We included pencil crayons and paper for the children to use in creating boarding passes, passports or whatever other creative writings they wanted to include in their play!  It was a great way to inspire pre-writing and communication through writing in our preschoolers.

Beginning the Project:

At the start of the project we used literature and group discussions to decipher what we already know about travel by plane and airports.  We discovered:

• planes go fast and are loud
• they take you places like Hawaii, Mexico, Disneyland, Hong Kong
• you get a snack and a drink on a plane
• pilots fly planes
• planes go to airports
• they have jet engines and wings
• you go on planes for a long, long time
• you go with your family
• a lot of waiting happens at the airports
• you have a passport to travel
• you need to take a suitcase full of stuff like a bathing suit and your teddy
• you have a ticket for the plane

We wanted to know:

• why do you need a passport
• how do planes fly?
• why does it get bumpy in the air?
• what happens in an airport?
• what is check-in?
• why is a plane so loud?
• what is security?
• what is that think you put your bags in?
• what does "carry-on" mean?

Developing the Project

Some of our favourite experiences were:

• Security:  For a group art project we took cardboard boxes and made them into X-ray scanners.  We talked about how the security guards have us put our luggage and carry-on pieces through an X-ray machine to make sure they do not have dangerous things inside.  We talked about how scissors, knives, swords, light sabers, fire, guns or other dangerous objects are not allowed.  Then, whenever we got our snack packs for snack time, the children would push their bags through the X-ray box to make sure they were safe.  Next they would walk through the metal detector (a door frame with streamers worked well!) and a "security guard" would check to make sure they were safe.  I modelled this at first, but after some time the child who had show and tell that day would wave a "wand" to check their peers.  They would say, "All clear"!  Sometimes buttons and zippers would set off our metal detector!

• Passports: We looked at pictures of real passports, some the children had brought in, and made our own for dramatic play and drama.  The passports had a Maple Leaf on them because we live in Canada.  They had the children's names in them and stamps from the places they travelled to.  We also took pictures of the children and they glued the pictures inside their passport.
• Check-in and Boarding Passes:  The staff and I made boarding passes for each child at the beginning of the project.  We included their first and last name, destination, place of departure, seat number, gate, and time of flight.  Everyday at group time, the children would come up to a staff and "check-in"!  We would pretend to check them in as they told us their names and seat number.  Then the child would put his or her boarding pass in the corresponding number on the attendance chart.  It was a great way to include numbers within our project!  The 4 year old classes kept their passports at school and we added checking their picture to verify their identity.  The 3's could not bear to leave their passports at school so we sent them home and put extras in the dramatic play centres.  The 3's often made new boarding passes and passports with the materials there.
• Paper Airplanes:  Of course!! How can you explore planes without them!  We had a nice ABC book of different types of planes on the art table during this time.  The kids flipped through it and would design a plane of their choice.  It was a great way to explore the parts of a plane and the children added them to their planes.  For example: windows, doors, cockpit, wings, baggage compartment, tail fin, jets, and passenger compartment.  Then, we let the children fly them up and down the hallway because the runway and air space was bigger out there!
• Blocks and Airports:  Some of our children used blocks to make a runway for their planes.  The 3 year old class in particular used this to explore the project.
• Visit by a Real Pilot:  My co-worker and I dressed up as pilots during this project with hats, and wings on our jackets.  When I told the children that a pilot was coming to school to visit them they replied, "A real pilot or a pretend one like you"?  The real one was a lot more interesting then us!  He came to our 4 year old classes in his uniform and brought in a number of objects for the children to explore.  Some items were: head set, log book, license, model plane, and book of airports.  Then, we watched a little video he had made of the plane he flew.  The children saw the inspection of the plane, it taking off from the cockpit, and landing back in Calgary.
• Photographs: We encouraged the children to bring in a picture of themselves on a plane or at a place they travelled to by plane.  We put these up on the wall to encourage and inspire conversation amongst the children.
• Book Time:  We have book and puzzle time while a staff is doing the washing up for snack routine.  I love this time because it inspires children to find answers to their questions in books or make learning connections within our projects.
• Transitions:  Our children had to follow the signs to B1 on the way back from gym to the classroom.  I put sign with arrows up in the hallways and the children had to find the way to our gate!  I moved them around so we ended up taking different routes back to our gate.
• Cooking:  On the plane you are offered cookies or Bits and Bites and we made these at school! 

Concluding the Project:

Shell Sorting in Hawaii

To end our project on Travelling by Plane and Airports we took a trip to Hawaii!  The children and staff dressed up in Hawaiian clothing.  We had Hawaiian shirts and dresses, sandals, sunglasses, hats, towels, and even a little inner tube!  On this day we set up the chairs for group time and taped a number to each one. The children had to come in and find their correct seat on the plane.  Then we fastened our seat belts and took off for our flight using the footage from the video our pilot made us.  In the air we had some pretend juice and I offered the children some "Bits and Bites".  Then, I told them we were near Hawaii when they saw a volcano out the window.  I brought out a volcano made from play dough, baking soda, red food colouring, and vinegar.  We watched it erupt from our plane!  Then we landed in Hawaii and set out to vacation and make some ice cream!  

Bananas and Mr. Mouse

A special piece of our vacation to Hawaii was discovering that our classroom friends Mr. Mouse and Bananas the Monkey were there too!  They had sent us a postcard from Hawaii and we made some some postcards to mail to our house too!  We sure had fun travelling by plane but we are wanting to get into our next project - Fire Fighters and Fire Safety!