august 2022
Transportation has been a huge exploration in the school age room for the past few weeks. The transportation has moved from the large blocks in the rooms, to tunnels, and now forward to tracks. The children investigated speed and the impact of height on the tracks.
E and B began to put together the tracks on the hill and rolling balls down them. A began to find ways to make the balls go faster. "Let's put the tracks on this side of the hill so they'll go faster" -A. A noticed the hill was steeper on a different part of the hill and wanted to test out his theory. After some discussion among the children, a box was put under the track. "They're going so much faster but we have to push [the ball] so hard to get over the bump" -A
E, A, B, N, and A moved the tracks over to rock wall platform and put the tracks on top of it. "The higher we put it, the faster the balls go" - E. They made their track into a U-shape and tried to get the balls to go over the whole track. "The balls aren't staying on the track" -A. "I don't know why they aren't staying on the track" -E. "It's because its too high." -A. Even though the balls couldn't travel the entire length on the track, the children were excited to see how fast the balls could go down. "Let's hold the tracks up in the air so it's even higher and roll faster" -A.
The exploration of spatial relations and measuring length have been prevalent in the school age program as the children measured the lengths of their tracks by how many pieces they needed to fit over the rock wall platform. We have seen a lot of measurements throughout the week with the tunnels as well as the children measured the length of the tunnels and the thickness of the overpass of the tunnel. With many of their structures they have been experimenting with weight and how much weight different structures and objects can withstand. The children have shown interesting perspectives on ways to elaborate and expand their structures and how to create inclusive play. Although there can be challenges on trying to incorporate everyone's ideas, the children use their problem solving skills to try to make sure everyone's wants are met. "Some of us don't want to do that right now but maybe after we're done over here we can spend some time doing what you want to do" -E.
Jennifer Kesner RECE, Miranda Lange RECE, Bobbi Abraham RECE
