Working at the Car Wash in Preschool

We made a car wash today in preschool.  This project is something that I intended to do last week during Transportation week, but I I couldn't quite get it all together then.  Fortunately, we play with our bikes on the playground almost every day, so there's always a need to keep them clean.

The idea for this project first came to me when I first started working with plastic tablecloths for different projects.  They have just the right weight for this kind of project.  They blow nicely in the wind, but still hang down nicely for the kids to drive through them.

I used two dollar store tablecloths for the streamers.  It turned out that the best streamer length for the boxes that I was using was 36", which is one-third of the total length of the tablecloth.

After I folded the tablecloth into thirds, I cut the streamers by aligning all three of my pieces on top of each other and then folding up one edge several times so that I could cut the whole streamer length with one small cut:

Using a paper cutter can be a risky way to cut them, because if you cut too far you will cut the whole length of the tablecloth into single strips (which is not the end of the Plastic Steamer World, but it does make things a bit trickier).  However, when I use the paper cutter for this I cut slowly and stop as soon as I feel the blade cut through the thick folds.

 

When you're done, you should have a long strip of streamers ready to tape on to your box:

My original idea was to use refrigerator boxes for this projects.  I envisioned that I would cut out two sides of the box, creating a tall tunnel for the Little People to drive through.

However, I am finding that locating good, extra-large boxes is much harder in general than it used to be.  In fact, this problem has turned me into somewhat of a Box Stalker, but that's the story for another day.   Fortunately, last week I came across some tall skinny boxes up for grabs at our Teacher Center that I figured would work.

I taped my streamers to one long edge of one box, and both long edges of another (I used clear packing tape for this):

 Here is the trial run with a single archway in my living room:

Because of the size of the car wash, I obviously had to assemble it at school.  I came with the streamers already taped on, and had the kids help me set it up.  I made two archways as shown above for the drive-through part.  As you can see, I had to space the side boxes out as far as possible for the various trikes and wagons to fit through.   I just used duct tape as well as I could to connect these archways together.  I then taped the two boxes on the ground to the arches to give it some stability.

This worked fine, and the Little People loved it. However, when I do it next year, I will definitely work harder to find refrigerator boxes.  The stability of those would have been worth it.  However, on the other hand, using these multiple boxes makes it a little easier to store.  I was able to take the boxes apart to store in our toy shed and promise the kids that we could play Car Wash on Monday, too.

 Here are some of the Little People enjoying the "water spray":

 As a side note, when I got done attaching the steamers to the boxes I had a few extra pieces left.  So I gathered bunches of them together and tied them to make car "polishers".

This and a few other car washing "tools" gave the Little People who were waiting for bikes something to do until it was their turn to get clean.  (You can see below that I provided the dusters that we used when we painted flowers):

Then, to top it all off, I used two tissue boxes and the very last of the streamers to make two car washes for the cars that we play with in our room on the carpet.  That way the Car Wash Fun could continue on even after we went inside:

All in all, it was great fun, and something that I think the Little People will enjoy and remember for quite some time.

The Lesser of the Two Evils

Yesterday was a "Choose the Lesser of the Two Evils" day, playground-wise.  Despite having three Little People out sick, our class was still bursting with energy, and when I received the news that the playground was really muddy, it was a true quandary for me.   On one hand, we could have skipped the playground altogether and gone inside and had extra center time or perhaps even watch a video.  However, my experience with this is that it never turns out as good as you might hope it would.  First of all, even on the coldest, rainiest days the kids rarely ever snuggle up and sit quietly to watch even the most entertaining movie.  They talk.  And move around.  And comment about every scene.  And argue.  ("I'm Buzz Lightyear!"  "No, I'm Buzz Lightyear!")  And on and on.  And if you go straight to extra center time, it's always way too long, and all that unspent energy manifests itself in a veritable plethora of frightening and hard-to-handle ways.

So, you could see why I was against that option.  However, the second option was to sanction some of the playground as "okay" playing space, and sanction some of it as not. (I'm not sure that's the correct use of the word "sanction", but you get the idea.)  Of course, that idea was a little shaky to being with,  because if there are two things that just don't mix, it's four-year olds and invisible boundaries.

Of course, anyone that knows me know that I chose the "Limited Playground" option.  I just couldn't stand the thought of all that wildness inside, so we went for option #2.  Much to the dismay of my coworkers, I'm afraid.  They in general seem to be colder than I am most of the time and seem to romanticize appreciate the "watch a movie" scenario much more than I do.

So, as a result,  we played outside.  I did try to create some visual boundaries by lining the grass area with cones, as well as by stringing some crepe paper banners around the forbidden area.  Some of the Little People did quite well with these boundaries.  Some were completely oblivious and wandered out into the mud - multiple times.  Wood Chip thrower drove his bike into the mud at least twice, and then wondered aloud in an amazed fashion as I pushed him back to the concrete, "I got all muddy!"  And some of the others just embraced the possibilities of it all, running and breaking through the crepe paper as if they were the winner of the Little People Mud Marathon.

But we got through it.  And we had a rather peaceful rest of the day.    Which was worth a little playground chaos in my book, hands down.

And So the Worm Fun Continues

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And so the Worm Fun continues.  We have discovered worm after worm on our playground these past few days, an accomplishment that thrills our worm lovers to no end.  Of course, I am beginning to suspect that the multitude of worms is coming not from rain, but instead from the moisture that is coming from the sprinklers that apparently have been running every single night in an attempt to grow in a large bare patch on the playground.  As far as I can see, no grass is coming from this moisture - just lots and lots (and lots) of mud.  And in my opinion, a large bare patch on the playground is much less evil than mud everywhere.

Anyway.  Every day one of us sits with the kids and digs for worms.  Well, one of two of us dig for worms.  One of my coworkers has so far shown no interest at all in digging for worms.  And that's okay.  She's more into Duck, Duck, Goose, and other those organized games that I have no interest in leading.  And that seems to work out just fine.

In the face of so many worms, we have had to instill some Worm Care Rules.  In fact, we've had to extend our rules beyond "We do not clutch the worms tightly in our hot little hands" and "We do not put the worms in our lunchboxes".   Now we have the "We just let the worms wiggle as they please around in our hands or in our cups - we do not pick them up with our fingers and stretch them out to see how big they can get."   Along with this we have the "We do not deafen the worms by yelling at them"  rule. Yes, I have one little girl who seems to have a fascination/repulsion relationship with the little guys.  She will hold them, but mainly she likes to put them in her little plastic teacup (a sand toy) and watch them.  And when they do something she doesn't like, she yells at them.  She'll lean over so her mouth is right by the top of the cup and yell at the top of her voice:  "HEY!  WORMS!  HEY, CUT THAT OUT!"  And then she'll lean back and look in sweetly to see if they have cooperated.  But alas, they have not.  Because if those worms had ears to begin with, they are now completely hearing impaired.

Fortunately, these Worm Care Rules have cut down on any overt worm abuse and hopefully will keep the SPCW off of our backs.  Which is a good thing, because I imagine that our Worm Fun is going to stretch (no pun intended) far into the days ahead.

W Week, As Well

I mentioned in one of my last few posts that last week was "F" week, and that we did lots of fun "F" things.  However, by default it was also kind of "W" week, as in W for Worms.

One of the Little Peoples' favorite things to do on the playground lately is to dig for worms in the wood chips.  They get their heavy-duty shovels and hoes out and dig great big holes looking for the little creatures.  Unfortunately, given that we get very little rain here for around nine months of the year, the worms can be few and far between.  However, now that we've officially entered the "Rainy Season", we have found a lot more of them.

In fact, one day last week was such a plentiful worm day that all the hunters had at least seven or eight apiece.  (Not all of the Little People hunt for worms, of course.  Some just turn their nose up in disdain, and some act like they really would hunt worms if they could, but they just can't.  "I'm allergic to worms," one girl told everyone last week.)

One of our biggest Worm Hunters clutched his catch in his hand for quite awhile on Thursday until we asked him to show us and discovered that he was tightly squeezing a whole tangle of them.  We then encouraged him to put them in one of our plastic bowls for safekeeping.  Of course, then we had to watch carefully at the end of playground time to make sure that he actually put them back in the dirt - although bless those little worms' hearts, I would imagine they're still in that bunched up ball shape even now.  (We learned from his mother that two days last week she found dead worms in his lunch bag.  He, of course, insisted that the teachers said it was okay for him to take them home - hopefully she realized that that was not the case.)

So, it was F week and then again it was W week.  Considering the rain we had over the weekend, it will probably be W week again this week, too.

As long as we can keep them unsquished and out of lunchboxes, I think that will be just fine.

They're Just Different

Well, I almost hesitate to say this, but I think my Little People are really getting better.  They still have their wild and crazy moments, but in general I can actually feel like we're accomplishing some things - not just making it through each day.

It's funny how different this class is from last year's.  It's been a while (many years) since I've had two preschool classes back to back, so I've forgotten what great disparity can exist between two groups of children so close in age.

For example, this class is much more concerned with each other's business than last year's class was.  They're big tattlers already (usually that is an end-of-the-year thing.)  Or perhaps it's that way because they haven't learned the "take care of yourself" rule, that eliminates a lot of the tattling because they learn that I won't pay attention to most of what they say about other people.

They're also more social, in that they play off of each other a lot more.  If one starts singing a song, several others do, too.  If one of them starts saying something silly, the others jump right in.  And it's about impossible to rein them in if someone starts making strange noises in large group time on the carpet (you know, tongue clicking, general spitting noises, heavy exhaling, etc.)

They also play with different things than last year's class did.  Like these big bouncy balls, for example.  Last year's class hardly touched them.  This class bounces all over the playground at them - they're quite skilled in this Big Ball Bouncing.  One little guy just likes to run up to them and jump belly-first on them to see which way his little body will get flung off.  And then there was the full scale Bouncy Ball Assault that three boys launched on the unsuspecting Duck, Duck, Goose game last week.  Somehow they were coordinated enough to grab the balls and run full-force with them  over their heads toward the game, finally bouncing them off of several off the sitting (and altogether unsuspecting) players.  We intervened on that one and let them know that wasn't a good idea.  They then changed the plan to running up to the players, yelling "Goose" to one of them, and running away and hiding. 

So, different, but clever.  I mean, you have to give some good communication points to anyone who can organize a coordinated Bouncy Ball Assault.

At least the first time.

A True Test

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I had a realization yesterday that my Little People have truly passed a "Getting It Together" milestone.  I had suspected this for a few days, but this act truly showed it:  I let them work with the tools from the shed.  This might not seem like such a big deal, but the truth is that these are real, scaled-down tools made of heavy metal.  Misused, they are capable of giving any Little Person a plethora of stitches at any given time. (I do feel like I must insert a disclaimer that they are not the tools shown above.  I'm a brave teacher, but I refuse to let them loose with pitchforks and saws.)

However, they didn't get the tools without a long lesson on the rules of Tool Usage.  The number one rule is to Keep All Tools Close to the Ground.  They aren't pick axes, intended to be lifted high above one's head and crashed down into the earth.  Hoes are made to carefully chop at the ground from a short range.  Rakes are made to scoot the earth over - not pound the earth.  Shovels are made to be stepped on, not rammed into the ground.  And the brooms - well, they're for the concrete, not the wood chips. 

Thankfully, they did pretty well with the tools.  They did have a blast digging in the wood chips.  They didn't even fuss when we made them fill in the holes when we left, fearful that some of the other students using the playground might fall and hurt themselves.  And only one person got whacked in the head with a tool.  That sadly was a teacher who was sitting on the ground, looking for worms in the digging site.  The site of the injury is still sore today, but I have to admit that my head was pretty close to the ground at the time of the accidental assault.

So there you go.  If permission to use real metal tools is not a sign of accomplishment for Little People, I don't know what is.

Capes

I recently stumbled across a great way to make capes for the Little People.  Of course, I discovered this on Pinterest, because I still can't seem to pull myself away from that site.

Anyway.  Here is how you make super-easy capes for Little People:

1) Buy a man's t-shirt at a yard sale.  I got mine for 25 cents, which I thought was a steal.

2 )Lay the t shirt down on the table, front side down.

 
3) Using scissors, cut from the side seam of the shirt up to the collar.

4)  Stop just as you reach the right and left edge of the collar, as shown:

5) Then open up the shirt as shown, and continue to cut around the collar.

6) Discard the rest of the shirt.  Or recycle it.

Voila!  You then have a very easy and cheap cape.

 7) Take the capes to school and let the Little People love them.

However, in your frenzy of cape-making, don't forget these two small details:  First, you will want to snip the front of the collar of each t-shirt with scissors and add Velcro to fasten the cut collar together.  If you do not, the longish cape can get caught in the wheels of a tricycle and pull on a child's neck, causing no small amount of neck redness - not to mention huge visions of liability issues to swarm before your eyes.

Also, don't skimp on the pink capes.  One is not enough.  In fact, is better not to put them out until you have more than one pink one.  Or perhaps a purple or yellow one, as well.

So there you - easy capes for the Little People.