Do you travel without a ticket?

Hello Purple Room Families,

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

Polar express!

Our Journey on the Polar Express this Holiday Season!












Well, it all started with reading a book on the couch with friends about things that move...There was a picture of a train and one of our friends said..."look at the train!" There were lots of oooooos and aaaaaas and from there the suggestion was made to make some trains....Next comment...Lets Make a big train!!!! We asked if anyone had heard the story of a big train...The Polar Express?" And that's how it all got started....they all exclaimed "lets build it"! How could a creative room like ours say 'no' to a thought like that! :)

We commenced our project by asking friends to draw a rough sketch/blue print of a train of their dreams. Putting friends in deep thoughts, we ended up having many ideas of what our train would soon look like. We then printed out a few pictures of cardboard trains from the Internet. Our friends got so excited in creating a mix match of ideas from the different pictures and making a final design. They also brainstormed the colors to go up on the train!
























Looking at the printouts from the Internet..now this is funny...one friend said loudly, "lets google it!" Great way to be a media consumer and then use ideas to become a creator!
























Our final blue print of the train with chosen colors, cabooses, a smoke stacker, and the conductor place. Now it was time to begin putting things together..












Our planning of other details like windows, doors, decorations, wheels and other engineering aspects were ongoing. After we got our big refrigerator boxes our hands-on-train project went with full flash and flare. We painted the engine and the other cabooses as per the decided colors. Friends also rearranged the classroom as a team to make room for our humongous train and friends decided where the train will fit the best.
























Painting the engine body and roof...we made two groups of 7 children each and each team got 15 to 20 minutes of painting time...
















































Painting the cabooses...we similarly worked in two teams to paint the three cabooses as per our final blue print...
























It was interesting to see some paint with brushes while some used their hands to spread the gooey paint around while enjoying the cold texture...












Friends got involved in various stages of planning, brainstorming, discussions, designing, coming to consensus, and finally the implementation/execution part to bind it all together.

Since children wanted a big train, we were in search for more boxes. We got one extra sturdy box- courtesy of a parent, and friends were like, yeah now we can make our train longer...well they also wanted a kitchen in the train...After all, hot chocolate was on the menu :) the children requested that we cut a door here so that it can get connected to the other caboose...believe it or it, this was the best door for them in the whole wide world - as mentioned by a child :)












Soon it was time to put the train together and cut out the doors and windows to the engine and other cabooses...our 'execto knife friendly' teacher Rosemary nailed down through all the cutting...












Placing the train against the wall, adding the cabooses, and the big kitchen caboose which was called the ginger bread house caboose since it looked like a house with roof, and creating seating arrangements since friends wanted all children to be able to sit on the train all together just like the polar express movie...












Soon, One of the major discussions that came up was how is our train going to run with. The answers that came up were steam, coal, water, juice, gas, electricity. This was a great learning Moment to introduce the concept of solar energy. We asked them who knows what solar energy is, and guess what, we didn't have to tell them what it was. They taught each other through questions and answers. For example, a friend asked what is solar energy. Right away another friend replied its the sun! So we chose to go 'solar' by adding metallic sheets on the roof to catch suns energy! Some brainstorming related to the same...












Teacher Richa brought some shiny gold and silver wooden panels and asked if this could be of some use. The children right away said that they can be solar panels and wanted those up on the train too...they chose to place it on the front roof of the engine and as a tunnel over the caboose...

Golden Solar panels on the roof...M said that since suns rays are gold, these look that they are catching the rays energy...












Solar panels as tunnel over the caboose...












Solar panels on the roof of the kitchen caboose...












Wheels came next... Wen we asked them, "Are train wheels the same as car wheels?" Common response... "no"...the children replied..trains run on tracks so the wheels have to be metal...The children also agreed there are big wheels and small wheels so the train can go really fast... Since metal is shiny our friends decided to use silver paint, glitter, and shiny gems...












Our wheels and smoke stacker are sitting to dry!












Now with the wheels and smoke stacker in place, the train was ready to roll to the North Pole...oh but wait....a little about the decorations the children chose. Friends agreed we needed lights because the polar express runs through the night as well. Xmas lights worked perfectly. Friends agreed since this was a train headed for the North Pole where Santa lives; Christmas decorations would be great to decorate the train. Friends helped by first selecting their own choice of decorations and then glued them with teachers help onto the train. From Christmas ornaments to ribbons to bells and tinsel...the Polar Express is certainly a sight to behold!

Choosing decorations...












Placing them where they liked...












The beautiful star crown on our polar express put up by our friend L :)












Our friends agreed that there was room for everyone including our polar bear mascot...friends brainstormed names for the bear and also took great care of his basic needs like food and shelter...












M bought some fish from him home one morning and said that polar bear must be hungry, we need to feed him some fish...












Finally they put polar on the roof of the entry door since he was the mascot and the train keep taker...

Friends now call themselves engineers since they build the train! The proof is their signatures on the polar express!

Friends signing their names where they like...












The last touch was to put up the train number as decided by friends. The highest vote went to the number 150 and that's what we numbered our train. The friends said if we don't have a number, people wont know which train to board! So they created the number boards...




































Now that the train was all ready to hit the tracks, friends got involved in a lot of imaginary play...

The train driver/conductor...












All aboard...












H taking down the menu being ordered by a customer to cook in the train kitchen...












Please check out our flicker web page to see many more of their fun involvement and Interactions with the train!

Well well well, now since the engineering part was done, ETHICS came into picture! :) :)
Friends said that we need to make some rules and also open a ticket station!

Parents, please climb abroad next week to get the highlight of what happened next!

Until then, keep seeing you'll around,

Hugs,
Teacher Rashida.