blame it on the rain

Here's our ice cream project update...the project is a goner. I'm going to blame it on the rain causing two canceled trips to the Red Mango shop. As I mentioned at the Back to School night, we work with several broad themes, ours being: relationships, communication, and self-expression and then the smaller projects emerge from the children. As interest emerges it is really our duty to pick up on it and help the children run with it. So that sort of explains why the ice cream project died, we couldn't run with it in the rain.

On a brighter note, I noticed that over the course of three days last week C, K, A, and H showed a great deal of interest in the elevator across the hall from our room. First K asked if she could make an elevator key, she used Mrs. Lee's key as a model and she cut, hole punched, and decorated her own key. Soon after that, there were little voices asking if they could make elevator keys as well. Each day, the one or two children who made their keys were able to use them by taking a trip in the elevator with Mrs. Lee. It occurred to me on Friday...why not pursue an elevator project. Below is a beginning web for the project. this is really just my initial brainstorm to help me as we begin the inquiry. The font looks pretty small, but if you click on the web it will open in a larger window.



If any parents out there are natural builders, lend a hand! We can use all of your expertise. I have limited experience with exploring pulleys so I've found some great inspiration at Teacher Tom's blog, http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/pulleys.html and from a pulley tutorial by my father.