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Children began to notice and sketch the bridges in their playground area, leading to a superb building project in which they had concrete experiences observing and visiting bridges. |
When the curious three-to-five-year-olds in a Head Start class began a simple investigation of lines in structures, no one knew it would end in an intense exploration of bridges. While playing outside, the children noticed one bridge with straight lines and one with wavy lines. They then started to draw and compare man-made and natural bridges that they had seen or crossed. They had many questions, especially, "What makes a bridge stay up?"
By listening to the children's conversations and encouraging their investigations on the topic, the teachers decided that the children's strong interest in bridges could develop into a very successful project. The subject would work well, the teachers believed, because the boys and girls would be able to learn about bridges using materials introduced into the classroom and also would have concrete experiences visiting and exploring bridges.
To encourage the class's interest and facilitate further discussion, the teachers made resource books, a library video on bridge construction, and bridge models available in the classroom. The children constructed model bridges of clay, wood, and other materials. The class visited several bridges in Cincinnati and walked on and sketched the Purple People Bridge. At the project's conclusion, the children collaborated with community partners to build a large bridge in their classroom and created a scrapbook of their project to share with family and friends.
The bridge project offered the children many experiences that met Ohio Early Learning Content Standards in language, math, science, and social studies. Through books, the children acquired new vocabulary and connected that information to their prior knowledge. By creating lists, they saw a purpose for writing. With webbing, they generated related ideas and wrote to express their thoughts. Often working together and sometimes with members of the community, the children conducted scientific research and used measurement techniques as they built their bridges.