By Lisa Rosado-Darham, Pre-Kindergarten / Kindergarten 1 Teacher
The PreK-K1 children loved to play in the construction area with small wooden cars and roads. In one of our morning meetings, the children discussed that they would like to have more roads to play with and this is how it all started.
The children made their roads out of recycled cardboard, and, as they worked on their creations, they discussed their journeys to and from school, the transportation they used, what types of buildings they passed and green areas. After much dialogue that was full of inspiration and excitement, the children wanted to build all of the things they saw on their travels.
Through their explorations and observations they discovered which recycled materials worked best for their different buildings and constructions. During this enquiry the children have actively used research skills, thinking skills and fine motor skills to guide their learning. The children talked together and shared ideas on a name for their beautiful creation, they decided on ‘Busy Town’.
They constructed roads, houses, shops, traffic lights, trees, parks, flowers, cars, planes, boats, and many more colourful beautiful places. They added people, mainly their own families, and signs so that the Busy Town Community could find their way around the town. They all chose to work together on creating our school and spoke about how they wanted their school to be full of colour and be surrounded by trees and parks.
Everyone worked so hard for over 6 months and took such great care when they played with their town! They treated it with love because they understood how much time and work each and everyone of them had taken to create Busy Town.
They enjoyed setting up their Busy Town in the Atrium, planning, discussing and collaborating together as a team. The children wrote and sent out invitations for their families and friends to come and visit. They very carefully went around and checked that the Busy Town was set up exactly as they wanted it to be before their guests arrived. The children were all so excited and proud to share their Busy Town with their families and friends.
I just want to share a quote from one of the students, they said, “all the roads should lead to ICS as that is where we all get together”.