They remembered that the bus shelter most familiar to them has, "One side closed, one side open," and they set to work. This group needed three signs to convey all the information they had read in the bus stop sign.
The following school day, we took a mini field trip to the bus shelter outside school. Thank you to Ms Coronel for coming with us. We arrived as two women waited at the bus stop. We asked the two questions that have prompted our learning in class:
How do you know to wait here for the bus?
How does the bus know to stop here?
The women told us that there is a shelter and a sign. They added that the roof keeps them dry when it's raining. Two buses went by without stopping and then a third stopped. The children exclaimed, "It says 1,2,7." "This is the bus my Daddy gets to work."
The children recorded their observations by drawing on clipboards and taking photographs.
Back in the classroom, I again challenged the children to build a bus shelter. Each group reviewed and talked about their drawings and photographs before starting construction.
"One side is open so the people can get out and get in the bus." -Joseph
"I put the bus shelter and the picture on the bus shelter." -Abe
"These are the wheels and this is where the people sit and this is the lights and that's the driver." -Harper
While building, the children encountered unforeseen challenges: making the walls high enough for a person to fit inside the shelter, trying to put on a roof without first constructing walls, making the walls strong enough to hold a roof. All of these challenges need to be solved by communication and collaboration before the bus can drive up to the shelter.
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| "That means stop!" |
Different parterships brought new ideas to the project. One girl immediately thought to use a board, rather than double blocks for the roof. The two girls worked to find a suitable underpinning for the board. After looking again at their photographs of the shelter they settled on using pillars and created a more open space than the other groups.
A third group added a seat for the passengers waiting at the bus stop and a sign. The children noticed their sign did not have a picture like the real bus sign. Every child took a turn driving the bus and putting passengers on and off the bus at the bus stop.
To further our learning, we are planning a field trip, by bus, to Hoboken Bus Terminal on Tuesday 28th March. If you would like to chaperone that morning, please let me know.
