The Bustle About Buses!

Our picto-graph: How We Travel Home

Do you remember, in the last post, I mentioned that the seemingly small things are big things in JK? Not much has changed since the last post. Though, this time, I`m speaking of buses. Every morning, there is much anticipation for the arrival of the bright yellow buses. Even the children in the EDP can relate, because when the buses start rolling in, the yard starts to get even busier.

Some of the "bus" books we have shared

We are so proud of our little people, who took a leap of faith and arrived at school in September on board their bus. There has been much much discussed and read on this popular topic, and many activities have been inspired as a result. Bus safety has been highlighted, but then more recently, our focus groups (*focus groups take place when 3 educators are in the room) rotated through activities that incorporate play into our everyday learning.

Through our name recognition, ABC books and Morning Message, letter recognition has been incorporated into daily practise. With our focus being on the big yellow modes of transportation, we were often encountering the BUS word in print. In upper case, and lower case. Children have been developing fine motor coordination and tracing over the key letters using yellow manipulatives they could scrounge.

 Recreating the word : bus

 Note the use of lower case letters

 This person opted to use the colours : yellow, green & red.

"The colours of a traffic light"

Creativity has been explored, and various art materials used, when the children took to painting a collaborative bus mural. The collaboration piece is essential when building a sense of belonging and cooperation in the classroom.

Our beautiful collaborative bus mural

School Bus by Donald Crews

Full of environmental print that inspired our signs

After revisiting the book, School Bus by Donald Crews   the children were noticing the illustrated stop signs, bus stop signs and traffic lights. This inspired the creation of signs for our dramatic play centre. There were many opportunities to incorporate writing into the centre. The children decided to write GO for green, STOP for red, and SLOW for yellow.

And of course, the children are becoming more comfortable in the classroom and sharing a bit more. A little person working at another centre overheard our discussion about traffic lights and shared, "When my daddy sees the yellow light, he says hammer it!"

Our "bus" dramatic play centre

Child created signs for the dramatic play centre

 Detail of the inside of the Donald Crew book. 

Note the SCHOOL BUS STOP sign in the illustration

Note the traffic light in the illustration

We continue to be inspired by the important things that are happening in our lives. In JK, this is how we are incorporating play into our full day.

Thank you for dropping by our atelier!