Train Station Dramatic Play

As a Reggio-inspired school, we try to incorporate child-initiated, project-based learning (similar to emergent themes) throughout the curriculum and school environment.

As a curriculum coordinator at the school, I try to integrate projects that are taking place in each classroom into the shared-by-all areas of the patio, yard and atelier (project/art studio). 

Currently, our 3 year olds are studying about trains. Last week, we added a train component to our hollow block center on the yard (see above). In a large wicker basket, we set out engineer hats, scarves, and large wooden trains. We also set up a basket of paper, coloring pencils, and books to inspire sketching, drawing and reading about trains (below). Many children designed great trains using the large hollow blocks.

To extend the project, this week we painted a large 'bullet train' in the Project Room. We also learned to sketch trains in our Exploring Art class, added trains and tracks to the free-choice patio environment, and we transformed our dramatic play area into a train station! Enjoyed by all, these activities were specifically aimed at our three year olds to extend and enhance their project. Not to be left out, each of our other classes enjoyed an array of activities that were geared specifically to their ongoing projects and interests!

Painting the bullet train. Furnace boxes are perfect!!

Wagons were set out for train rides and shared motor activities

Our 'bullet train' made in the atelier. Duct taped for durability ;-)

In addition to a set of pre-printed 'train tickets,' we set out paper and coloring pencils for the children to create their own tickets. 

We posted a map of our local Metro on the front of the ticket booth.

Tickets, please!

Incorporating projects into shared spaces not only stimulates learning for the intended class, but enhances the environment and sparks new interests for all the other students in the school.

Dramatic Play Outdoors - Air Traffic Control

Our Jr. Kindergarten class is currently VERY interested in making paper airplanes. We can barely keep our writing center stocked with enough paper to keep up their airplane making endeavors! Since we run on an "emergent" curriculum, I decided to support their interests with an "Air Traffic Control" dramatic play center....and what fun it has been!

The idea was for the children to pretend they are controlling the airport activities, so I set out earphones, walkie-talkies, old phones, keyboards and some old laptops.

I also made an air traffic control wand out of colored tape wrapped on PVC so the children could direct the planes. And of course, I set out an entire bin of sturdy paper airplanes. On the ground, I designed a numbered runway out of colored tape. The numbers were so the children could measure how far their plane flew.

To incorporate math and literacy, I made a chart for children to write down their names and the distance their plane flew. Clipboards made this activity even more appealing.

As another added component to spark literacy, I posted photos with sentences about airports, maps, and photos of tickets and passports. I also posted some idea started and songs for the teachers to use to engage and spark interest. In the writing center, we stocked the bins with paper to make passports, tickets, airplanes, and anything else the children could think of!

Next week, we plan to transform this area into a passenger airport. To prepare, the children are painting a large box (to be made into a plane), and I've laminated some printed airline tickets and passports for the children to use on their voyage. I'll also add some old luggage, chairs for the plane, and ??? Any ideas????

 Check back next week for more photos of our airport!

Outdoor Nativity - Dramatic Play

In the spirit of the season, we joyfully hauled out all of the nativity-style clothes we could muster for the children to explore in our new Nativity dramatic play area. We supplied wings for the angels, sheer fabric, gowns for Mary and cloaks for Joseph, headbands for the shepherds, fancy hats and gifts for the wise men, blankets, stuffed animals, and of course, Jesus and the manger (a doll and cradle). We had two bales of hay to define the area. Sounds great, but in fact, it looked...well....pathetic. 

Truly, it looked like two bales of hay and a crate of clothes. 

So, what to do for our sad looking corner? Bring on the butcher paper and erect a stable!!! For the final touch, we just added a HUGE glittery star that hangs from the ceiling! Cue the Christmas music, and HARK, we have an inviting dramatic play that is fit for the season!

Dramatic Play Ideas - Outdoors!

Kids love dramatic play. Whether it is in the classroom, in the woods, or in the play yard, dramatic play is always one of the most popular centers in which the children congregate. Dramatic play allows children to make sense of the adult world in a child-friendly setting. Dramatic play also develops necessary skills in cooperation, language, role-play, and leadership.  

Children love to play in a dramatic play setting that has been designed around a theme. Providing ample props engages the children in the theme and allows them to make believe their own scenarios. The key to a successful dramatic environment is providing enough props for several children to avoid conflict. 

The benefit of providing dramatic play outdoors is that the children can use more of the environment to enhance their play. They can also let loose a bit as they can use more of their body to engage in play. They can be louder, busier, and even incorporate the structure, bikes, or sandbox!

Here are a few of the dramatic play ideas we have used in our Outdoor Classroom over the past few months:

Our younger pod enjoyed the small scale Country Kitchen (crossed with the Mud Kitchen approach). The teachers put the kitchen near the sandbox to encourage the children to use the sand and other natural items they had set out.

Mixin' up the soup!

Farmer's Market - We set out four shopping carts, several shopping bags, purses, several cash registers, and play money. We added labeled bins and shelves filled with fruits, vegetables, bread and dairy products.

Western Cook Out - Cowboy hats, flannel shirts, bandanas, plastic plates and utensils,  and aluminum cookware with LOADS of plastic camp food made this theme a big success. The kids really enjoyed the giant ham and steak!

Every week, we add a few special items to add interest to the theme. This time, we added a campfire and tripod. The kids had a great time cooking the ham and hot dogs over the fire.  

We even added a hanging lantern for effect.

Fire, Fire! During the summer, teachers inspired a fire house theme. They added yellow boots, fire hats, cut-up garden hoses, plastic fire extinguishers, and plastic fire coats.

The children were allowed to take the gear all over the playground to extinguish fires (they just had to bring it all back at the end of their play time). They even made the tricycles into fire engines!

Dino Dig - Here we added a table filled with sand, dinosaur skeletons, hand-made fossils, and paint brushes for brushing off their treasures.

Paleontology Lab - Directly beside the dino dig, we place another table filled with laboratory gear such as goggles, beakers, and magnifying glasses.

Adding photos and language around the yard inspires curiosity in Language and Literacy. 

Teddy Bear Picnic - The children enjoyed LOADS of teddies and stuffies. We added pitchers, cups, plates, baskets, and a quilt to make the perfect picnic setting. 

Post Office - This theme features mail boxes, US Mail Tricycles, newspaper, paper, cards, envelopes, stickers, stamps, clipboards, tape, and hole punchers.  You name it - if it was good for writing or posting, we provided it!

Other ideas include: Play House, Police, Bakery, Pumpkin Patch, Garden, Weather Station, TV Station, Rock and Roll Stage, Nautical or Pirate Boat, Castle, or Shoe Shop.

Have any other great ideas for Outdoor Dramatic Play? Mention them here and provide a link if you have one!

If You Build It, They Will Come

In my last post I talked about extending activities rather than "ditching" them when children appeared uninterested in an object or activity. So today, I decided to test out the theory again. This time it was our set of "tree blocks"in which I wanted to spark some interest.

I have put these blocks in our play yard several times for the children; and for several times, they weren't interested. At all. To be honest, I was shocked. I personally love the blocks! I mean, don't the children know that natural materials are all the rage? Don't they understand that playing with natural items will help them gain the much-needed and much-talked about connection with nature that the children of today so desperately need? I guess not. Let's face it...they are in it for the fun. It is the teachers who are in it for the philosophy. That said, it is up to us to "camouflage" the philosophy with "fun".

So, it was up to our storage room I went to find something interesting to add to the tree blocks. I walked into the "science room" and stumbled upon a bin of forest animals. These could definitely add some life to the blocks! This time, I put the blocks on our patio where our "older" pod (3-5yrs) can choose to play during their free choice time. Before the children arrived in the morning, I set up the table to look like a little forest with animals peering around corners and hiding under the blocks. As the children passed by on their way to class I could already hear them chatting to their parents about the forest table.

At first, only one child went to the table. It was a start. He asked me to play, so I sat with him and we enjoyed playing with the creatures and talking about the various types of animals on display. Slowly, several others joined the fun and soon I was able to back out and watch as their play unfolded.

They worked cooperatively for more than half an hour and created some very clever structures with the blocks. They called me over to see their creations. They were positively thrilled with themselves!

During the same play period, my coworker came over and commented on how his 3 year olds were not playing with the brand-new hollow blocks we just purchased. He is an extremely insightful teacher, so quoting Kevin Costner from Field of Dreams as he walked, he went over and built a great something...and the children came.

Ahhh, success!

These structures were made by the 3's class...after the teacher left!

Finding Fall, Part 2

If you read Finding Fall Pt. 1, you'd remember that I recently went to a ranch to purchase an abundance of squash, gourds, pumpkins, and corn stalks. We displayed our horn of plenty in the lobby for several days, but today it was time to let the children play! Our fabulous group of teachers got together during nap time and we spent the afternoon transforming our Outdoor Classroom into an Autumn festival of sorts.

First, we scattered hay and set the GIANT pumpkin to perch for the season. We then set out all of the other squash, gourds and pumpkins for the children to explore. A far cry from "display only,"we encourage the children to tote, carry, push, pull and explore the bounty. Consider the items "loose parts" that can be used in every form of their play (well, as long as they are not purposefully damaging the items). We have provided wheelbarrows, pots, pans, and a wagon to encourage their interactions with the new items. They are also encouraged to use the pint-sized rakes to help rake the hay back into our planters!

In the above sensory bin, we mixed cornmeal, beans, and Fall colored rice. We added dried gourds (complete with dried seeds to rattle), some unusual pumpkins, pinecones, spoons and small cups. This is a very "natural" bin and encourages children to explore the patterns and textures that nature provides. To stimulate some scientific observations, I also plan on adding a sensory bin filled with moist dirt, dried beans and small shovels to the yard. My hope is that the beans will sprout over the course of the week and the children will be able to discover and investigate the growing seeds. I can't wait to hear them chatter about why the beans in the dirt sprouted, but the beans in the cornmeal did not. 

The dramatic play area became a Western Cowboy Cookout. We provided lanterns, western clothes, cowboy hats, cowboy books, aluminum pots and pans, play food, a picnic table, and a bale of hay on which to sit. We try to carry this theme for several weeks, so, as time goes on we will probably put in a few more items to add interest...a "campfire" with roasting sticks, a farmer's market, a tent, books about cowboys, and more. 

I do love a great dramatic play area, but I do sometimes feel that we limit the children's creativity by providing items such as realistic play food. When we give the children plastic spaghetti, it can only be spaghetti. Whereas, if we provide more natural items (pinecones, sticks, rocks, etc), the items can transform into anything the children would like them to be. So, to offer an alternative to our more "structured" dramatic play, we have a "mud-kitchen" playhouse in the sandbox where we offer the children a selection of natural and open-ended play material.

 Do you have any great Autumn ideas or photos for the Outdoor Classroom? I'd love to hear them in your comments! Feel free to link to your blog.

Paleontology...Preschool Style!

Homemade "Moon Sand!" I accidentally poured too much water into the mix, but that made it all the more fun for the kids! It was an ooey, gooey mess!

We stuck to the KISS rule (Keep it Simple, Silly) for the first week of school. However, week 2 meant it was time to get serious with some seriously fun and engaging activities for the children. We decided on a "Science and Paleontology" focus, because heck...what kid doesn't love dinosaurs and fossils?!?!

We love a "print-rich" and "photo-rich" environment because it sparks emergent literacy, imagination, and critical thought. So, we started by hanging photos and dialogue all around the playground. There were photos of scientists working in labs (yes...even the one of Einstein sticking his tongue out!), beakers filled with colored water, microscopes, and even a "Caution: Safety Goggles Must Be Worn" sign for the dramatic play area.
Here are a few of the other ideas we implemented during this focus on dinosaurs and science! Enjoy!

Dramatic Play: We filled a diorama table with play sand, toy dinosaur skeletons, and paint brushes. On another table in the DP area, we added goggles, beakers, magnifying glasses, and white lab coats. We also put out clipboards with beaker shaped paper for the kids to write lab notes. The kids were crazy for it! They did take MUCH of the sand and dinosaurs from the diorama table over to "lab" (okay...rather unexpected!), but I suppose we should have had the foresight to add something of investigative interest to the "lab" table. The following week we added fossils to the diorama table that we made from natural items (rocks, shells, etc) pressed in Plaster of Paris. We also changed out the science equipment and put out non-drying brown plasticine and some natural items such as pinecones, shells, & rocks, as well as some small dinosaurs. The children were encouraged to press the items into the plasticine to make their own fossils.

Sensory: We are HUGE into sensory items. This week, we made our own homemade "moon sand" using play sand, cornstarch and water. We added small dinosaurs, plastic Easter egg shells, and small trees. It started to smell by the end of the week, but the enjoyment at the beginning was unparalleled...the children couldn't get enough of the drippy, oozy, hand-covering mess. I accidentally added too much water, but they LOVED it! Originally, I purchased new play sand, but to do it again, I would just nab some from the sandbox since by the end of the week it all ended up in there anyway!

Another sensory activity we did this week was creating a "Color Lab." I filled each bin in the water table with a different color. I used Colorations Liquid Watercolor (you could also use food coloring), but tempera worked just as well. The noticeable difference in the methods was simply clarity of the water.The children used beakers, ice cube trays, eye droppers, turkey basters and measuring cups to mix the water and explore color.

Art: We decided to paint boxes this week. Large, small, and medium. It was a great muscle-building activity since the kids were able to paint horizontally, vertically, on a flat surface, and on an upright surface. We mix-and-matched the colors and sizes of boxes on most days. Our intention is to put the boxes in the block corner next week. On one day, however, I only put out green. During the course of the day, I realized this huge green box could be put to good use...and so he transformed into a giant bean-bag eating dinosaur! One of my more-creative-than-I coworkers put together the "boxosaurus." We're not sure how long he'll stand up to 80+ bean-bag throwing preschoolers, but he'll be the center of attention for a while, I'm sure! I will keep you posted on that one!

Be prepared to use A LOT of boxes! We set up this activity for the whole week and the kids painted about 15 boxes. Painting was so much fun...but I think building with them will be an even bigger hit!

The "Boxosaurus" ...if he looks as if he's had a rough weekend now, you should've seen him AFTER the kids got to him! Sniff!

Sand Area: Large dinosaurs and hard hats were added to the sandbox alongside the usual shovels and buckets. Several of the safety goggles also "wandered" over to the sand, but that was part of the fun! Though we don't encourage items being moved from one area to another, if a child is focused and purposeful, we allow their play to evolve wherever they like. We just make it a policy that each class cleans up the playground and returns all the loose parts to the respective areas prior to the next class coming out. Labels with photos are essential for this strategy!!