>music
the topic of pathways really lent itself well to both toddler
age and preschool age. They were really able to incorporate
a lot I'll sensory type of item's and then it really expanded to
a more cognitive type of investigation where children began mapping
to represent pathways on paper. Each classroom has
tailored that investigation to
their group of children.
I really like pathways as a topic because children learn best when
you take something that they know about and you build upon their knowledge.
We went on a walk and we took note of different things that we saw.
We took actual physical pictures of things that they saw as they went along
on this pathway. The day after that we went on to Google Earth
and we zoomed in to see if we could identify some of the different things
that we
also noticed on our walk.
Does anybody recognize anything on this map?
Does anything look familiar to you?
We've look at this before..."
"I see our playground!"
"You see our playground?"
This gave them a different perspective
on what something that they see everyday, that they play on every day
what it would look like from up here.
And not all of the children, but most of the children
were able to identify the components of our playground.
"Troy want did you just tell me?"
"I noticed the road for the bikes"
"Troy noticed the road for the bikes"
Brrrrmmmmm. There's the road for the bikes
"Calvin, tell me about what you noticed?"
"It's a pathway that doesn't....it goes staying around."
"See that oval right there? That we can't go on with our bikes."
"Did you hear the word that Calvin used? I heard him say pathway."
"He was talking about the pathway that we take."
"But we don't take this pathway over here we use this pathway"
one of the things that was suggested to us by a parent
was "Make Way for Ducklings" we read the story and then you can go on
Google Earth it's actually they call it a lit tour
and they show you where Mr. and Mrs. Mallard went on their tour of Boston
"Here's the entrance to the garden."
"And they'll see Mr. Mallard"
"And they'll see Mr. Mallard, you remembered that James."
"Look, look, look! Look at that."
"And there is the pond in the public garden where Mr. Mallard was waiting for them."
"I'm gonna find the same page in the book. See?"
"Same page."
"There's Mrs. Mallard, there's Mr. Mallard, and there's all the babies waiting right on the island."
Some of the classic stories that we read in the classroom on an ongoing basis are
"Three Billy Goats Gruff", "We're going on a Bear Hunt"' and Rosie's Walk".
and we decided for our key experience
that we would break the children up into three groups
and focus each group will focus on these given
pieces a literature to help demonstrate their level of understanding for pathways.
"Shaylene's writing "haystack", and Izzy wants to make sure that we write down that there's a mouse."
We went through page by page and said,
Okay what is something that you know noticed?
and we physically wrote the words down so that we would remember next time
that we joined the group.
we made a map of the pathways that they
noticed in the story and then they created it...recreated it with, using salt dough in a 3-D form.
"Tell me about what you're making there, Shaylene."
"I'm making the, the fence"
"The Fence okay."
James was in my group and he was excited about the beehives
so he wanted to draw the beehives. So when we came back the third fourth fifth time
to do the 3d portion that was his job.
So he made to beehive out of the salt dough.
initially I was a little apprehensive about
pathways with Toddlers because I thought its pretty abstract
of a concept it's not something that they can hold.
"We're going on a bear hunt, we're gonna catch a big one."
"What a beautiful day."
Once I figured out what to do
which was, we base the entire investigation around
"We're going on a bear hunt"
everything just fell into place because we were able to do so many experiences
that were sensory in nature.
When we initiated it we decided to bring them for a walk around campus
They could really get the experience of looking at the sidewalks
versus the roads, you know where are their pathways around our school
Okay, now that we've seen a pathway let's look at where the characters in the story go
and of course the characters in the story go through all these different areas
the long wavy grass and the river and the forest.
"Here's the wind blowing. Look at the snow! Whoooo! can you make that sound?"
"Can you make that sound like the snowstorm?"
We were on our swirling, whirling , snowstorm
and we were talking about things that were cold.
"It's cold"
"It's cold! I think its ice."
They were able to see that once they put it on the paper
They could create pathways with it.
So we talked about curvy versus straight pathways.
" I see a straight line on yours."
They noticed that they had to rub it against
paper in order to create a pathway. At one point we were talking about
the grass in the story I had put a bear on one side of their papers then
a toy person on the other side and their goal was to create a pathway
from the person to the bear
They used a glue stick which was the kind that you can see before it dries.
So they they were able to see the pathway that they made and then
they sprinkled grass on top of that and they were
using that in dramatic play as well walking their character across to the bear.
I wanted to start of an investigation with a book
Rosie's Walk, the character, the hen who goes on a walk and she doesn't realize
a fox is behind her and she has to navigate over a hill, under a beehive.
after reading the story a few times, I wanted them to retell the story
to me to see if they grasped the concept, prepositional words that were in the story
"And then were did Rosie go?"
"The haystack."
"What on the haystack? Cameron?"
"She went up the haystack, and then she went down the haystack."
"She went OVER the haystack. Can you draw that?
"She went OVER the haystack."
So I had that big poster board during whole group
and they were able to show me Rosie.
First she went over the hill, then through the pond
And they just took turns coming up and creating it.
"She went over the haystack, across the windmill"
"Through the fence"
"Under the Beehive"
"Back to her home"
"Do you see that path?"
"She went all around, back to her home."
"She was on a path!"
"She was on a path. What kind of path was she on, Malia?""
"A path for...she was on a path that leaded to her home"
In the classroom they create their own pathways
using a Rosie figurine
They created in the art area, they used different materials to create Rosies Walk.
"We can make a pathway!"
"Oh, this is gonna be the Beehive!"
Our classroom enjoys board games.
Every story we read
they want to create a board game with it.
That includes a lot of math skills, number, numeracy
the one to one correspondence.
as they move their Rosie along, they could kind of retell
the story as well and use those prepositional words from the story.
"One...One"
"Now who's at the house?"
"I am"
"We're both at the house."
"We followed the path all the way to the house."
"How come we can't go in these?"
"What happened if we were to go in there?
Do you remember?"
"Did Rosie go through it, over it?
"What does she do in the haystack?"
"Over it"
"She did go over it"
"And the fox...what?
"Down"
"He fell in it"
A few months into it
we created a pathway from home to school
I asked the children, "What do you see on your way to school?"
Some take a bus to school, some walk to school.
so it was really, really fascinating to
hear them speak about
what they see on their way, and draw it out.
I said "Let's make a map of a place in your home."
some children created a map of their
backyard, their living room, of their kitchen
One child drew a picture on his bedroom
and then he drew his bed, and that was the pink for the bed.
then he drew his brother's bed, but every color that he used for his map key
corresponded to and item in his room.
Then it led into our dramatic play.
Huge dramatic play, our Zoo they want to create a zoo.
So we incorporated what animals do we need in our Zoo. They had to come up with a map of the Zoo.
They created the items for the Zoo.
They created signs for the Zoo.
There was the literacy and the writing, and we researched the animals.
Not just any animal was in our Zoo, they had to figure out what kind of cage it needed.
You can tell the had a really good grasp of pathways
because the zookeepers job was to show
them where to go.
Children still today are talking about pathways in the school
taking the short path or I'm going to take the long path.
So even though the investigation is over
I think children have made so many connections with
their immediate environment.
They still talk about pathways. That's still a word
that they use. I think they learned more
about what kind of materials are involved in a pathway.
Every time you do a new investigation where
you have to learn something
or you discover something with a child, its exciting!
It's very, very exciting!
I was amazed with the connections that my children made.
They were drawing and making lines and saying "I'm gonna make a pathway!"
and they were just bringing all the knowledge that they have learned into
all the center of the classroom and I was very surprised that
they were able to do this.
I learned more about maps, let's just say,
Then I ever did.
In the beginning I was a little leery of pathways.
but it lands itself, we talked about GPS technology; we include all of those things.
I just learned that there is no limit to how much
you can stretch a young child's mind.
<music