E incorporated the plane into the animal family play, using the semi truck to haul it to the mechanic. Pretend play offers a unique platform for everyone to bring their strengths and interests: different roles and plans can be carried out without one specific person necessarily having to lead or organize the play, and it can constantly change to reflect the needs and interests of those involved. In this way, the children are empowered to co-create, imagine, and work together to build plans that work for everyone.
What will slide down?
The kids start by experimenting with different things they find near the ramp: Legos, blocks, balls, cars. Some go slow but stay on, some go fast but often slide right off. After figuring out that the cars/trains go fast and often stay on, a pretend play game emerges around taking turns using the railroad crossing as the turn taking device, which had been a challenging point of conflict previously.
Taking turns sliding down
Ramp is closed. Time to make a new track.
Potions!
Ingredients: Flowers, Water, Leaves, Water, Pinchers, Scissors, and Potion Jars.
“The petals are easy to cut off. I wanna collect all the yellow ones and all the pink ones.”
Iris created a potion that when smelled, “turns you into the biggest octopus, and the baddest, and it can eat you!”
Making apple juice from our apple tree
We teachers are grateful for our wonderful natural resources at Patchwork such as the fruit trees and the gardens, which can support an understanding of where food comes from. The children seem to really enjoy this hands on experience of harvesting produce and then turning it into something delicious!
We used a super awesome apple coring and peeling machine. Everyone was fascinated by this machine, and the way it turned the apple into a spiraling shape. We blended up the apple using the blender, and then poured it into a cheesecloth bag. Everyone helped to squeeze the juice out into the jug.
Balls and Ramps
Cause and effect is so fascinating. This repetition may seem simple, but the kids are getting a lot out of rolling the balls and other objects over and over again in different circumstances—-different surfaces, different angles, and with different ingredients (such as sand, water, etc.) involved. Many other elements also come into play—how can we share? What if items roll away and we can’t find them? How can we support ramps and make them sturdy enough to work? How much weight can they hold? What other kinds of things do these rolling objects remind us of, and how can they be incorporated into dramatic play?
Playing Cats
Lots of meows, running, digging and playing. This imaginative play is a polar opposite to the construction work that has been predominant so far this year with a lot of these same people. The construction incorporates jobs, structure, and lots of doing, while the cats game is more about feeling, expressing, relating, and communicating. A refreshing reminder that both are necessary and valuable in life 🙂
Isaac the cat owner
Isaac “make sure you come back when you’re done at the park.” “They’re not eating their dinner.” “Guys, I’m gonna go to the store to buy us some new food.” “It’s time for you to eat your dinner.” “Okay, I’ll just bring it back to the kitty supply store.”
Painting with Apples
The apples have been so plentiful that we’ve been trying to find new ways to interact with them! This week, we had a painting project with the apples. The children experimented with rolling and smearing the apples around on the paper and seeing how the paint blends and squishes.
Sharing Planet Knowledge
This planet is the gassiest.
Yeah, it’s made all of gas. And it’s so, so , so HUGE!
this one has so many moons. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19….we counted all of the moons of all of the planets!
Rebekah, I’m going to make an experiment of finding all the colors of all the planets. I need red… And then blue, and then pink, and then yellow, and then red, and then blue. I’m gonna use this sucker to suck up all the colors, and then put them in hot water, and then mix it with salt, and then that will make all the colors.
The Recycle Center
The Recycle Team:
Man, look at how much recycle we have!
There’s so much recycle!
I’ll pick up this recycle.
Look at this old monster truck.
And here’s a whole tire!
Recycle! (throwing a piece of plastic over the fence for the workers to pick up)
And we’re wearing our vests.
Yeah and hard hats.
Guys we’re the garbage truck.
You’re the recycle truck and you pick it up and take it to the recycle plant.
The Recycle Center Expands…
The kids announce the recycle plan at meeting, and more people join. The trikes become recycle trucks, cleaning up the neighborhood. The slide becomes a conveyor belt, with dump trucks at the bottom to collect the recycling. The kids engineer different instruments to carry, scoop, and move along the recycling.
Testing the Ramp
T is testing the ramp built by him and Cassie. They are discovering that different balls work best to roll down the ramp and observing the speed at which they get to the bottom. T came to the decision that the wood balls worked best, and that rolling the two at once creates the most success for getting at least one to come out at the bottom.