Horse Play

      
Tomorrow we are going to visit horses at the Therapeutic Riding
Stables.   For the past several weeks of school we’ve been preparing
for our visit.
 
One week it was our sign in question.  The majority of children
do like horses.
 
We dug out all our horses from the animal baskets and set them up
in different play scenarios around the room.
 
I’ve been collecting hobby horses from thrift stores and set them
out last week.  The older children loved to ride around them room.
        
The younger children loved to get up close and nuzzle.
       
And then I noticed that the older children were feeding their
horses the wood pellets in the sensory table.
    
It got us talking about what horses like to eat.  Today for snack
we had horse food; apples, carrots and hay (shredded wheat).
         
          There was a bit of neighing going on.

Alphabet Rocks

        
I’ve noticed that many of the children love rocks.  They pick them up on their walks, they fill their buckets when they are at the beach and often they’ll arrive at school to show me a rock they have in their pocket.
               
One day when I was at the beach I collected rocks and decided to make
ABC rocks. 
                
Each letter of the alphabet has two rocks; one for the upper case letter
and the other for the lower case.
          
The little white cups have the same letters printed on them.  They can drop the two matching rocks into their cup.
               
As the children played with the rocks they didn’t always put the rocks into the cups.  They enjoyed moving the rocks around, feeling them and turning them over.  Carefully exploring each rock.

Sometimes they would ignore the rocks and simply stack the cups within each other.  I noticed this same thing after they finish their snack.  They like to stack their drinking cups as high as it will go. 

Hmmm, I’ll have to put just cups on another table and see what they’ll do with them.

Bus Makeover – Part 4

  
The next day, at school, we began painting the bus.
     
At the art table we had collected materials from our storage
and art areas for the children to create parts to add to our
cardboard bus.  Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of
them creating only of the finish pieces.
New black tires.
Mirrors for the driver.
Hand straps in case we have to stand.
The pull cord when we get to our bus stop.
The money drop box.

A destination panel, lights and license plate adorn the front
of the bus.
Rear view of the bus.

"All aboard", the bus is ready to roll and passengers are waiting.
 
 
The passengers pay as they step on to the bus.
  
The driver checks that all are on board and the bus is on it’s way.

This project has included planning, designing, building,investigating,
exploring and sharing our ideas.  It has allowed us to follow the
interests of many children, of various ages, in our program and
create alongside them in the development of a new dramatic play
area with exposure to real life experiences.

Thanks for joining us on this trip of playing and learning.

Really Getting to Know about Buses - Part 3

 
This week we had an opportunity to visit the transit
bus yard to get a really close look at a bus.
 
Mr. Richards, the manager and the mechanic, Trevor, showed
us around the bus.  First he raised the bus really high; high
enough for him to walk underneath.
 
After he lowered the bus he showed us the ramp and invited
us on board.
 
On board we saw different straps.  Some hanging from the
bars above for people to hold on to if they have to stand. 
And a different strap down below the seat to tie down a
wheel chair.
 
Each child had their clipboard with paper and pencil so
they could draw pictures of the different parts of the bus. 
(We'll use this information later at school to add more parts
to our cardboard bus.)
 
By the doors we saw reflector lights and safety signs.
 
Mr. Richards showed us the stop button and we all
had a turn to press it.
     
We heard the ding and saw the sign light up each
time we pressed the button.
 
An exciting part was to pretend to drive the bus and
 
where we drop our money to make the clink-clink sound.
The driver on the bus says, "Don’t forget to pay."

Outside the bus we saw…
 
the destination panel that tells us where the bus is going
and the license plate,
 
the big engine and where the diesel fuel is pumped.

 
      
We found extra tires and measured them by using our bodies. 

 
We gathered outside, enjoyed a snack and talked about all the
different things we saw.
 
Some of the documentation the families did on the tour.

One of the highlights of our tour was meeting a couple
of bus drivers.
  
Thanks so much to Mr. Richards, Trevor, Kenny and Sarahlyn
for making our tour exciting and very informative.

 Tomorrow's post will show you how we made changes to our
cardboard bus back at school.