City Life

Last week provided the class with a fascinating provocation to our learning about cities when the water pipe burst on Willow Avenue. On our way to the park, we stopped to watch the excavator digging up the road to mend the pipe. 

Once back in the classroom, some children represented their knowledge of the incident by using blocks to build a hole in the road and a toy crane to pull out the car stuck in the hole.

To extend our learning, our classroom library is stocked with books about cities. Two boys noticed a road repair in the book, A Day in a City by Nicholas Harris, and made a connection with their own experience. "I see a leak! It goes drip, drip."

The children are also showing their knowledge through their artwork. Miss Santos has been guiding the children in painting the buildings seen on their walk in Hoboken. The hospital has lots of windows and the library has a big door. We have returned to the painting day after day to observe and add these details.

At the light table and on the nest there are conversations about cities during play. 

"It's time for the bears to go to bed." 

"It's an emergency! Send the firetruck!"

In blocks, the challenge was to build a multistory structure with the introduction of using the boards as floors. We thought about the school and how our classroom is on the second floor and Noah's mom and dad work on the fourth floor. As the small group began to build, they saw needs--a door, stairs to get to the second floor, tall windows--and collaborated to solve these needs. 

We wonder how this new technique might change the structures the children build when representing their city.