Whatever Floats Your Boat!

It's beginning to look a lot like Spring, and with these beautiful temperatures the snow has melted so quickly, our forest has turned into a swamp with one of the biggest puddles this school has ever seen. One afternoon we provided a few craft supplies (popsicle sticks, paper, tape and pipe cleaners) and challenged Club 4/5 to make boats for this lake-puddle. The ideas and designs they came up with flowed forth, resulting in some pretty great watercrafts!

It wasn't all about boats, however. The large pails we've been using to make snow sculptures make great puddle play too. Armed with shovels, the children methodically filled up the pails so they could water the grass in the field. Clearly, this was very serious work.

At some point they noticed there was a small hole near the top of one of one of the pails. This provided a while new angle to bucket filling. A pair would work hard to keep Pail 1 filled while another pair used the hole as a spout to fill the Pail 2. 

While it doesn't really look like much is going on, these children are actually building skills in working together as a team with a common goal. They saw the hole in the bucket not as an obstacle, but as a different way to move the water from one place to another and quickly sorted out who would do what job for this very important work of watering the grass. Without needing or asking for help from us, the educators, they organized a chain of command, giving one another an important task that would help reach their goal. These cooperative social skills they're learning are a very important part of growth and maturity. Way to set a good example of friendship and working together, Cohort B!