By Nandini Bhattacharjya, Head Teacher
“We went to Arizona with my family in a car!” Janie exclaimed. In early January, the children in West AM were excited to share their travel experiences with us after the long winter break. Their thoughts seemed to revolve around the modes of transportation they had taken. Santiago said, “Coyote Point Museum. I saw iguana, eagles, sea otters, snakes, frogs, raccoons, skunk. In my mama’s truck.” Cecelia announced, “In an airplane to Nana and Oppa’s house.”
Discussions about trips developed into conversations about their own experiences with the vehicle they were most familiar with. Ongoing, in-depth discussions on various modes of transportation evolved organically as teachers followed the children’s interest and planned the curriculum each week through careful observations: “I have a red car.” “I don’t know what car I have but it is a big car.” “I think I have a small car.” The children also discussed where they went in their cars. Marcos said, “You go to Tahoe in a car,” and Katie said, “To school in my car.”
Some children expressed their understandings about transportation during play. They built cars with gears, and self-driving cars out of hollow blocks and wooden planks, wheels, nuts and bolts. A group of children built a car wash for all of our cars and trucks in the block area. Information on cars seemed to be abundant: Children knew many features of cars, such as gears, car seats, horns and steering wheels, which they represented through drawings and easel paintings.
Meanwhile, a few children started building train tracks with unit blocks and talking about trains, inspired by their experiences with methods of transportation. There were thoughts about underground trains from children who have visited San Francisco or other cities with subways. Children painted pictures at the easel depicting the BART lines that run in the city. A couple of children attached ramps to the magnetic wall in the sand area to create a subway for the city they had built there.
As the winter rains descended upon us, we decided to focus on transportation on water. We made origami boats to sail on puddles that were forming every day due to the storms. Children learned to follow a sequence and practice precision as they folded several boats, then experimented with different sizes and materials to see if they could prevent their boats from getting soaked in the puddles. They discovered that foil at the bottom of paper boats worked really well.
We explored various modes of transportation through stories, songs and discussions. Books for story time were chosen to expand and support this interest. Following the folding of origami boats, we observed a wave of ship making using unit blocks. Ellie and Colette used unit blocks on a daily basis to build a structure that looked like a ship, and furnished it with the dollhouse furniture. They had rooms for everyone on their ocean liner, even pets. These repeated experiences enable children to be self-directed and to represent their ideas through the open-ended materials Bing provides.
Around this time we also started to hear: “I go to Nana and Granddad’s house on a plane” (Margaret). “I went to India on a plane” (Avni). “I want to go to outer space. I have never been to outer space because I need to tell my mom. I need a rocket ship” (Wyatt). Many children seemed interested in planes and things that fly. They designed wings for themselves with tissue paper, cardboard, easel paper and finger painting paper. One child struggled to affix the finished wings to his back and learned that he could recruit the help of a sibling and a friend. Soon, many children were eager to help. More than 10 children collaborated, using their expert taping skills to support the child’s idea. They all ran out to the bridge to witness and offer feedback as the child tested his wings. It was remarkable to see them working like scientists: persistent with an idea, changing their plans as necessary, and testing their new designs.
The children’s interest in flight inspired Harry, Ryder’s dad, to bring in his drone to fly in the yard. The children were excited to see the drone go high into the sky, and to see on a monitor what the drone could see. They literally gained a new perspective as they saw the top of Bing School and themselves waving on the patio. The children observed and commented a lot about drones, saying, “It has propellers.” “It can see things.” “It has lights.” “You need a device to fly the drone.” “It does not have jets, it has batteries.”
Eventually, we came back to where the project began: taking trips. The Big Trip by Valeri Gorbachev generated amazing ideas about where children wanted to go in the world and how they could get there. We saw an opportunity and introduced the globe to them to further support their interest. The children were thoughtful about where they wanted to go as they looked at the globe. When they identified water, they took a boat. They came up with planes, cars and sometimes even a pony to cross over land. Investigating ways to go from the United States to India, Colette said, “I’ll go on a boat, then I’ll find a pony with my brother and then go on a pony all the way to India. Nothing is dangerous to go on except for a goat because it has horns.” One child, while looking at the globe, was intrigued by the large white mass that is Antarctica and imagined taking a trip there in a time machine, and another child imagined crossing the desert on a cheetah. We found that these experiences fostered children’s spatial skills and facilitated topographical understanding—they were able to differentiate between land, mountains (by the lines denoting height) and water.
Roads became another topic of interest. We asked the children, “What do you know about roads?” Children said, “Roads take you to the fair” (Milly). “To Utah!” (Tenley). “I just like to go home!” (Viet-Lin). “To the park and home and Bing School” (Harper). Some knew that the major roads were called “highways” and talked about taking 280 or 101 to come to school. “The road that goes from California to New York is number 80,” said Julian.
With this interest in roads, it was natural to introduce maps to the children. We brought out the map of an area in the play yard we call the Back 40, and they engaged in a game of finding hidden pictures of bunnies in their yard. Some children enjoyed finding the bunnies, and many marked the places they found or hid the bunny with an X on their map. The X markings led to the idea of treasure maps. The children made X marks in the sand to indicate the spot that held their handmade treasures and treasure boxes.
This is my house on my street. By Grace W., 3 years 3 months
As the children’s interest in maps grew, we introduced the book As the Crow Flies—which is about animals and their maps: In the story, animals follow maps to get to their destination. As the children observed the routes the animals took on the maps, a child pointed out that there were shorter ways for the animals to get to their destination. This sparked many discussions about “short cuts.” We talked about the long way and the short way to go from point A to point B. We wondered if the shorter path is always the quickest or easiest.
There's water on top of the treasure. A catapult launching a bomb. By Ryder C., 4 years 7 months
At the end of the winter quarter, we took a walk to the mailbox down the road from the school to drop off a letter to a former teacher who had recently moved to New York. The children followed a campus map from Bing to the mailbox. When they got back, they described the path they took: “We went straight, then on a rainbow curve, and then we saw the mailbox.” When they drew their path to the mailbox, they drew double lines and said, “That’s because we had to come back the same way.”
It was exciting to see the children’s interest in roads and maps emerge from their experiences with different modes of transportation. We can all agree that knowing where you are, where you are going and how to get there are valuable lessons for everyone.