 |
Children on their daily walk around campus began noticing and talking about buses. This interest led to the investigation of buses. |
When a class in the preschool of a community college took its walk around campus, the children noticed various buses passing by. They began talking about the buses and asking questions. "How do buses drive?" and "Does the horn beep?" are just two among a string of questions they raised. So their teachers helped them begin an exploration of buses.
Buses were a very appropriate subject for the children to investigate because many of them had older siblings who rode buses to school, and they frequently saw buses in their neighborhoods and on campus. Because the children had many opportunities to visit, ride, and investigate buses, it was a high-interest topic that could be studied with concrete experiences.
 |
The teachers took the children on a bus ride to fuel their interest in buses and to give the children a shared experience on which to build their expanding knowledge about buses. |
During the project, the eager classmates took several exhilarating bus rides. They engaged in imaginary play with the front of a real bus loaned by the Regional Transit Authority (RTA) and collaborated in building their own bus from a large cardboard box. In the classroom, the children read fiction and nonfiction books about buses and transportation and experimented with wheels and the concept of spinning during art activities. Making crayon rubbings of license plates helped teach them letters. The children also made drivers' licenses, created money, and wrote speeding tickets, adding a literacy component to their exploration. At the project's conclusion, the children created an invitation that asked the other preschool classes to come see and hear what they had learned about buses.
The bus project offered the children many experiences that included the early learning 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 and drivers' licenses, they saw a purpose for writing. With webbing, the children generated related ideas and wrote to express their thoughts. When they built their bus, the boys and girls used measurement techniques and tools and conducted scientific research. A list of standards addressed in the project can be found here.