“Wow, what is that?” many voices questioned us as we began our walk to the park on Tuesday morning. The children were pointing to the wheel chair lift that the bus driver was operating as he picked up seniors from their residence. We stopped and watched as the bus driver was putting the lift away after it was used. Children didn’t need much explanation as they pointed out “he’s helping them”. We confirmed how they were right the bus driver needed help getting those in wheel chairs onto the bus so that they could be taken where they needed to go. Children seemed very intrigued by this way of transportation as we continued to watch the bus be packed up and drive away. By having this opportunity to watch the bus driver operate the lift children were able to connect a mode of transporting to those in their community.

Transporting materials and people happens all around us all the time and this seems familiar to the sandstone room children. We continue to explore the big idea transporting as we notice sandstone children transporting materials around the room and outside in the play space everyday. We are currently using spray bottles as a tool to transport water. You can see children running around outside, spray bottles in hand as they spray water on the trees, grass and play materials. Not only does this give them gross motor opportunities they are also working on strengthening their hand muscles as they squeeze the water bottle triggers. Through this experience children are increasing their fine motor capacities (PPP, p.96, 2014) and children will continue to gain more control of their hand movements. At first this was tricky for sandstone friends but we now have become experts at this task. We have also explored transporting water inside this week by using marble works connectors to create tubes in the water table. Children continue to also pack things in their bags as they move materials around the room as well as packing thing in the vehicles and wagons outside moving materials all around the outdoor space. We wonder what new ways we may begin to transport materials and what types of collections we will transport next week.

Have a wonderful weekend, Michelle and Paulette.