Our classroom's imaginary play grew deeper as they visited many fictional places and had imaginary journeys and experiences to bring back and share. The 'All Aboard' was a phrase in everybody's talk. Friends worked very cooperatively in taking turns being a conductor, or a polar express kitchen chef or traveling on the train. We learned that some friends didn't board the train when it was overcrowded, while for some it didn't matter. We talked about respecting each other and the train, as well as being prepared for small pushes and accidents because of the space constraint.
Some of the activities we did around their train interests:
Friends brought their different train track sets to share with the classroom and we learned to put them together. Here we got involved in reading the instruction booklet step-by-step to finish a model and each friend got a turn to come forward and place their chosen pieces!
They built trains with foam blocks, wooden blocks, magnatiles and always enjoyed playing with the wooden train set...
Fine motor practice tracing letters and pictures of trains...
Friends decided to open an official train station and a ticket counter. In order for customers to know where it was, they created 'ticket sign boards' and welcome boards and decorated them!
Soon, the concept of money crept in when friends proclaimed that they needed money to buy tickets...
They came up with the idea of collecting donations from friends and families and as a result cre.ated a small creative donation box. Thank you to everyone for contributing to this activity...
There they set the ticket counter while exploring the ticket printing machine...
Customers came from all around to buy tickets with pennies and friends got involved in a lot of math by collecting money, counting, giving out the change, using addition and subtraction. Punching numbers on the ticket machine enhanced their knowledge of number recognition, big and small numbers...
Soon we ended up designing our own tickets. Here we worked on the letters in the word 'ticket' and learning to write and recognize the dollar sign -$. They together brainstormed different things like time, date, words, symbols, pictures that can be seen on real tickets (print knowledge). Finally, friends put their creative open ended thoughts on paper and told us all about their design, where the ticket is going to take them and how much it costs. The documentation for the same can be seen on the classroom's purple wall!
A few examples...
Talking of friends imaginary journeys - Here M landed on the North Pole and said that he came here just to ski with his friend Polar and he even bought his ski shoes that he made out of cardboard!
The crew here said they are going to 'Marshmallow Land' since they can pretend that the white snow at the North Pole is white marshmallows. They also said that when you walk on the marshmallow land your feet might sink in a little since the road will be too soft :)
Another crew was visiting the library and thus getting in character with all the reading on their way...
Hot chocolate!!!!
We watched the clip of the hot chocolate dance in the polar express while sipping hot chocolate ourselves...
After the hot chocolate party, we heared a loud thud on our classroom door and when friends rushed to open it, they say a big red parcel with a note from Santa that read "Special delivery for Purple Room! All the way from the North Pole! Happy Holidays!"
Some even said that they saw the edge of Santa's sled when they quickly opened the door :)
We got beautiful silver bells from Santa's reindeer harness...in order to not lose them like the boy in "Polar Express" did, friends immediately wore them around their necks and made many wonderful wishes...
There were many such unforgettable journeys on and around our polar express. Friends had pretend lunches and tea parties, they used the kitchen to make hot chocolate and many other delicacies, they even brought their pillows in the gingerbread house caboose for sleepovers and play dates, a friend wanted to have his birthday party in the polar express. The train sure holds a lot of our emotions!
Gak
One of the activities that friends loved was playing with gak. We put gak in a basket and hung it up on the ceiling to observe what would happen...
Observing and keeping a note of the time...it took almost 25 minutes for the gak to reach at this position...
Friends collected it in cones like ice cream...
They even observed and found that it was hollow in the middle like a tube or pipe...
Something like this...
Thanksgiving and Christmas activities which were equally fun and busy will be posted soon.
Until then, keep seeing you around!
Hugs,
Teacher Rashida
