Tuesday SOL: What if we built a firetruck?

This is a Tuesday
Slice of Life.
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day. 

Check out the Two Writing Teachers website for many more reflections on teaching.

Each of the early childhood classrooms is doing an author's study on Donald Crews. He has written and illustrated many great books about vehicles - Trucks, School Bus, Freight Train...just to name a few. The teachers decided that it would also be fun if each classroom tried to create a vehicle of some sort - knowing how much preschoolers love cars, trucks, and things that go.

What vehicle should we build? Well, in the Big Cats, this question had an obvious answer. Pretty much every day, for several weeks now, the children line up the chairs on the carpet to create a firetruck. Our long cardboard ramps have been turned into firefighter hoses. Typically, the big concern is a possible fire in the dramatic play restaurant. Firefighters are right there at the ready!

At the writing center, the children love to draw firetrucks.

Yes, let's build a firetruck. 

A week ago, we began to build. 

I turned our old cardboard castle (originally, a dishwasher box) on its side and attached two tri-fold boards for length. The children agreed - this looked like a firetruck! It was just the right size for children to get into and have some fun. The children added all sorts of extra components - pretty much any cardboard scrap that we had in our recyclables bin was turned into something novel for the truck. This is what delight and focus looks like!

Of course, a beautiful day called for painting the firetruck outside. Bright red, of course.

Every day, the children add more details. We brainstormed what was needed and did our best to create these together: 

steering wheel (cardboard pizza tray), 

hoses (scrolled easel paper), 

"grill" on the front end (xerox boxes and a metal shelf - taped to the front of the box)

seats (more boxes), 

a siren light on top (more boxes), 

headlights (fun flower-shaped cardboard pieces), 

wheels (black plastic takeout containers), 

a computer (egg cartons), and 

lots and lots of tape. 

The children put a lot of taped stripes on the firetruck, simply because making the stripes was so much fun. Cutting tape is the purest of pleasures for the preschool crowd. 

Looking good!

Oh, and we should probably draw a firefighter for the firetruck.