Construction Begins

For the past few weeks we have worked with the children on planning for our train diorama.  The children have decided what parts of it will look like and how they will help to contribute.

Last week we began construction.  We got a box and decided what colors to paint it.  The children decided that brown would make sense for the bottom part because the ground has dirt and dirt is brown. On the side of the box inside, the children decided on light blue.  They decided that when they look out of the window they see blue so blue would be a good color for the sides of the inside.

The children also designed trees for the background.  They drew the trees and I was able to make them bigger and smaller by scanning them into the computer.  This helped us to create our forest in the background.

The outside of the box is painted red.  The children held a vote and most of them decided that red was their favorite color, and also the color of lava which they like a lot.  

This week we are going to look more at train stations, think about designing train tracks, and construct a bridge or tunnel for our diorama.  We are very excited to see how the next few weeks bring all of our ideas together!

Creating groups

Often the individual children in our classroom are interested in different types of activities and material explorations. As the school year has progressed, the children are now more confident in the types of lessons and materials we use in the classroom.

In thinking about our future diorama, we wanted to see what type of contribution might interest them the most. Different actions were listed and we talked about how each might contribute to the diorama.   I asked the children what type of activity they liked the most, or knew the most about, because when we start creating I will need some experts to help with different things. The children took a minute to think and then I asked them to come make their choices. We still have some children to speak with but they each seemed confident as they made their choices.