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Day 7 - A wooden bridge has been added
to miniature golf area. There is a golf ball and club on one side of the
bridge and a golf hole on the other side of the bridge.
Kate asks the children,
“How can we get the ball from one side of the bridge to other side
of the bridge without going over the bridge?” The children are more interested in marching
over the bridge than listening to Kate's question. After a while Gryff finally
answers Kate.
Gryff – Hit the ball over the
bridge.
Kate –
“Remember what Dotty said that it would be difficult to golf on the bridge?”
Laura begins to build a
block structure with ramps and gutters in the adjacent block area. Kate asks
Laura to bring the gutter over to the bridge in the miniature golf area.
Kate – “How can we use the gutter to get the ball from side of the bridge
to other?”
Children are stumped.
Kate suggests that the gutter go under the bridge to get the ball to the hole
on the other side. None of the children place the gutter under the bridge so
Kate places the gutter under the bridge. Jewel helps place the hole at the
end of the gutter. The children take turns hitting the ball through gutter
under bridge to the hole on the other side.
During circle time we
addressed the suggestion that Bobby had had when we asked the children what
they would like to have in our classroom miniature golf course. He had said, we can bring the
outdoors indoors to have whatever we want … Sky … Clouds
The teachers asked the
whole class “How do you bring the outdoors in?”
Bobby: put paper on
cardboard and then color it in. An outside – all the
things – We could make a sky, a sun, clouds.
Nico: Golf into a tree
house or a doghouse. Not use dogs. The ball can go into the house and down.
Brenna: trees - on the
picture.
Ally: Big, big copies of
trees.
Bobby: Different kinds of
trees, “Make” pretend trees.
Laura: flowers
Ally: tore flowers
Laura: Bee flower
Bobby: Bees
Henry: Bees can go right
into the big yellow sunflowers and get bees for their babies.
Cathy: A big tall ramp for
the tree house.
Bobby: a super golf machine – the ball can go out by itself – we should make one out of metal
Susana: You can get two
ramps and you swing the golf club into the tree house and bring it back down.
Day 8 - In the Art area the teachers
asked the children to draw pictures items from outside that they could bring
inside for the mini golf course. During morning meeting we reviewed the list
of these items that was generated during circle on Monday.
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In
order to give the children a concrete representation of what they had
listed a geranium and a rose were placed on the table. There was also a
book on trees and a drawing book with bees in it. Henry used the real life
geranium as a model for his drawing.
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In the Mini Golf area
two new provocations are introduced. Nico, one of our preschoolers, made one
of these at home. The other was a piece of Plexiglas placed on four wooden
blocks.
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Nico brought in a box
that he had made at home for the mini golf course. It had a tube, made from
a plastic bottle, placed diagonally through holes cut in the box. This
quickly became part of the mini golf course
Kate- “What do we do with this?”
Nico - We
have to make sure that it is facing a hole.
Abby- It's
a hole that goes into a ball.
Victor- Let's test it.
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A new challenge of a
Plexiglas sheet with 3 holes was added to the mini golf area.
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Leo takes a shot at
the Plexiglas hole.
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Lola created an
intricate mini golf horseshoe shaped hole with a gutter and a tube that went
up and down on the right side, a long gutter perpendicular to this on the
backside and then on the left side another gutter that went up to the GW
China bridge and came down in a gutter to Nico's hole that he made out of a
box and a tube at home.
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Lola
creates a new hole with a gutter and long green tube. It is over 3' high.
Lola tries but can't get the ball up the ramp.
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Kate asks if she can
lower the ramp a bit. Lola nods yes. Kate lowers the structure and Lola
takes a shot.It goes up the ramp and down the tube.
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Lola keeps adding to
the structure.She sets up more gutters and Nico's homemade hole.
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The ball rolled out the
right. Lola retrieved an extra ramp to block of the opening to the right.
Abby replaces the gutter with a large wooden block.
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At the writing table
some of the children begin making tickets for the mini golf course.
Abby - I'm
going to make tickets.
Abby goes to the writing table and cuts long strips of paper. She “writes”
zigzag letters on the strips.
Lola gives Kate small wooden cubes “pour l'achete,” or to buy her
tickets.
Jewel decides she wants to make tickets, too.
The children use strips of paper or small wooden cubes to represent tickets.
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Leo
waits in line with his wooden block ticket.
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Jewel
and Fynn also wait with their tickets to play golf.
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Dotty asks Bobby, “What
do you think an obstacle is?”
Bobby - An
obstacle is a thing that's in your way.
Lola's course and the Plexiglas were left up for the next day.
During circle the
teachers and preschoolers talked about having a mini golf “celebration.”
The parents would be invited and hotdogs would be served. The discussion
continued around making tickets, signs and a tree house for the course. The
conversation was
founded on the children's suggestions about the mini golf course.
Top
Day 9 - The Mini golf setup from Tuesday
is still set up in the room when the preschoolers arrive in the morning.
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Gryff takes aim at
the Plexiglas hole while Bart tries his luck on the ramp.
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Henry
tries his luck on the Plexiglas hole.
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The Eiffel Tower has been added to the mini
golf course with several tumble tower blocks placed behind it. The goal is
to get the ball through the hole under the Eiffel Tower
and then knock down the blocks.
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Lola
has altered the blocks so that instead of knocking down all the blocks at
once the ball goes under the Eiffel
Tower then between a
row of blocks in order to knock down the one standing block before the
hole.
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At the Art Table the
preschoolers begin building a tree trunk out of paper mache and a bucket
During circle the
students and teachers continued their conversation about creating a mini golf
course. The class was divided into two groups to explore different areas of
interest. One group devised structures with the Tumbling Tower Blocks. After
the structures were built the children tried to knock down with only a golf
ball and a golf club. The other group created an obstacle course that they
hoped to incorporate into the golf course.
Day 10 - The minigolf course that was
set up on Tuesday is still available to the preschoolers. The Children
experiment with the Plexiglas creating barriers and obstacles around the
holes in the Plexiglas.
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A
barrier has been placed around the Plexiglas hole. Leo golfs up the ramp to
the Plexiglas.
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Susana
tries to golf up the ramp.
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Susana
succeeds and cheers.
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The
children add additional props and barriers to the Plexiglas hole.
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Day 11 - The pyramid is added to the to
Miniature Golf Area. Adjacent to the new Pyramid ramp is the London Bridge ramp. Two of the girls
experimented with different ways to set up blocks at the end of the London bridge ramp to
find the optimum way in which to knock the blocks down with the golf ball.
Victor, in the meantime decides to create a score card so that the
preschoolers can keep score while they are playing miniature golf. A barrier
has been placed around the Plexiglas hole. Leo golfs up the ramp to the Plexiglas.
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Henry
rearranges the course to accommodate the pyramid
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Two
of the girls experiment with building up and knocking down the blocks
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Victor makes a
scorekeeper card in the art room and later placed it in the MG course
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At the Art Table the
children begin to paint the paper maché tree trunk for the miniature golf
course. Small bowls of orange and blue paint are set put out with our tree.
The children mix the colors to get variations of brown paint.
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Victor mixes the
orange and blue paint to make brown.
Victor: It takes mostly blue to make dark brown.
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Lola
and Rebecca paint the tree trunk brown.
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Brenna
and Jewel put the finishing touches on the tree trunk.
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During circle time the preschoolers were separated into two groups based on
their ages. Dotty spoke with the older children about the mural. She began by
showing them posters of both a city mural and an ocean mural. She then asked
the children about what they would want on their mural.
Dotty asks the children, "What do we need for our mural? How can we
bring the outside in?"
The children made the following suggestions:
Laura – water
Henry – sun
Bart– Ground, sky, grass
Nico – draw a picture of a
tree house
Bobby – worms
Cathy– fish
Lola – un lac (a pond);
Nuage dans la ciel (clouds in the sky);Grenouille (frog); Tetar (baby frog);
Nenufar (lily pad flower)
Henry told Dotty that
he's really good at drawing suns.
Laura said that she would draw the ocean.
Bobby said that he would draw worms and bugs on the ground.
Victor said that he would draw a bridge.
Cathy said that she would draw fish.
Top
Day 12 -
In the miniature golf area Bart rearranges miniature golf props to try to
knock down the Eiffel
Tower
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Bart: If you knock the
tower down you get 5 point cause it says 5 points (the Eiffel Tower
has a number 5 written on it). The ET is up on the bridge.
Henry: And
that one is 8 points cause it says 8 (The London
Bridge has the number eight written on it).
Bart moves the Eiffel
Tower closer
Henry begins to swing the club.
Bart: I'm
gonna be the guy who tells you how many points you got.
Bart then moves the Eiffel
Tower much closer to
the gutter. Kate asks him why he did this.
Bart – You first have to
get the ball through there (referring to the tunnel that goes underneath the Eiffel Tower) and then you knock
the Tower down.
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At the Art Table the
preschoolers uses sponges to put black, brown, and white paint on the tree
trunk. After they complete this task the preschoolers begin to paint the
doghouse.
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Lola
uses a sponge to add texture to the tree trunk.
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Victor,
Brenna, and Abby begin to paint the doghouse for the Mini Golf Course.
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Susana
and Cathy paint the doghouse.
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Dotty has brought
several children into the Art room to plan the mural that will “Bring
the Outside in.” She has invited the “Ground crew,” the preschoolers who were
interested in creating ground objects for the lower portion of the mural.
First the children
drew pictures of what they wanted to put on the mural.
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Bobby draws bugs
and worms on the ground with the sun above them
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Jewel begins her
drawing of a tree.
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Dotty consults with
Jewel about her drawing
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At Circle Time the
children shared their artwork. Afterwards Kate read a book about a girl who
is very good at balancing things. The book entitled, “The
Balancing Girl” by Bernice Rabe, tells the story of a girl in a wheelchair
that is very good at balancing dominoes. After sharing the book the class talked about dominoes
while Kate showed the preschoolers how to carefully line up dominoes.
Day 13 –In
the miniature golf area Kate has set up two hollow wooden blocks with three
rounded gutters running through it. Cathy rearranges the minigolf props so
that it makes more sense to her. Kate asks her about it.
Cathy – I put the tube under
the tube then I put the big number one (the Great Wall of China) beside of it and then we got some
blocks to stop the ball from moving all the way over there.
Bobby takes the Eiffel Tower
and places an arc directly in front of the tunnel that goes underneath the
arc thus blocking the hole thru the Eiffel Tower.
He then carefully places dominoes on the other side of the arc. Kate asks him
his strategy:
Bobby -
Ball in through Eiffel
Tower over arc and
knock down dominoes
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Rebecca
golfs through Cathy's altered course
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Rebecca
watches her ball as it goes through the tunnel
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Bobby
carefully places dominoes behind the arc
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Ally
helps Bobby with the dominoes
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Bobby's
completed mini course.
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In the art area: The
children were painting cardboard cloud cut outs the color white for our
miniature golf course. As they were painting the clouds Bobby and Laura had a
discussion about clouds.
Bobby - Bringing outside
inside is very good for a mini golf course.
Bobby- Some
clouds make rain.
Laura - Yeah, gray clouds do.
Like today, it's going to rain and snow and then it won't be spring anymore.
At Time Circle time
Dotty took five of the children into the art room to work on the mural.
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Dotty
talks to the children about the mural. So far only some fish and the pond
have been drawn
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Lola
draws a fish to add to the pond.
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Henry
finishes drawing his sun
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He
begins to cut his sun out.
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He
holds up his sun and cuts around it.
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The rest of the
children were divided into four groups. Each group had a set of dominoes and
a plastic golf ball. The children took turns lining up the dominoes and
knocking them down. The children were completely engaged in this activity.
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Fynn
stands the dominoes up
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He
and Bart line the dominoes up in along row.
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Bart
knocks the dominoes down as Fynn watches.
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The
preschoolers place some of the dominoes vertically in a circle.
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Jewel
and Gryff line their dominoes up in a curvy line.
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Rebecca lines their
dominoes up vertically in an arc as Shay and Timothy watch.
Timothy
- We
have to be as still as the statues ‘cause they
always fall down.
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Rebecca knocks the
dominoes down.
Shay
moves and Timothy grabs her arm and says, No, you have to be as still as a
statue.
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Top
Day 14 - In the miniature golf area
holes made of wooden planks are added to the area.
In the art area the preschoolers add batting, Styrofoam peanuts and tissue
paper to the white cardboard clouds.
Day 15 -A frog hole is added to the
miniature golf area. The preschoolers use an extra set of props to build onto
frog holes.
Victor and Bart show Jenny where to hang the clouds over the miniature golf
area.
At the writing table,
Jenny spoke with the preschoolers about the dominos. Jenny showed the
children how to add the number of dots on the dominoes. She sat with Abby,
Victor, Bart, and Henry and together they began calculating equations with
the dominoes. Jenny and the preschoolers counted the dots on top and wrote
down that number with a plus sign below it. They counted the number on the
bottom and wrote that number below the top number. They drew a line for
equals and then counted the dots on the whole domino. They wrote the sum
below the line. The children were all very interested in the process and
showed pride in their new skill.
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Victor counts the
number of dots on the domino.
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Victor then writes
this number down on his paper.
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Day 16 - The newly painted doghouse is
added to miniature golf course.
In the art room the
children begin painting the background of the mural. The canvas is divided in
two. The preschoolers paint the top half blue, to represent the sky,with
paint rollers.
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The mural before
the sky is painted blue.
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Jewel painting one
half of the canvas blue.
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Bobby painting the
sky blue.
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Jenny continues to solve addition and subtraction problems with Lola, Leslie,
Victor, and Bart.
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Jenny
points to the addition line in the preceding equation
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Lola
then makes the addition line on her new equation.
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Day 17 - Domino math continues to be
explored in the writing area.
During circle time the
preschoolers drew pictures of golfers with the help of their “modeling”
classmates. The teachers had noticed that when the preschoolers were drawing
golfers it was usually a child facing forward with a golf club. To provoke an
understanding of
how a golfer really positions his/her body the teachers asked the children to
take turns modeling the position of a golfer swinging his club. The children
drew the model holding the golf club. Teachers scaffold the children to help
them understand and illustrate the position of the golfer.
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Abby
models the position a golfer takes as he swings his golf club. The
preschoolers draw pictures of Abby posing as a golfer.
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Top
Day 18 - A knock down center is added to
circle rug, as both a diversion from the miniature golf course and also to
revisit the preschoolers' original fascination of knocking down items with
balls.
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Brenna
swings the tethered ball at the cardboard blocks in the Knockdown Center.
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Ally
waits with the tethered ball while Gryff and Bobby rearrange the blocks
domino style.
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Gryff
and Bobby cheer as the blocks collapse against each other, just like
dominoes.
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In the art room the
children drew, traced, and cut out cardboard clouds. They then traced these
onto the painted blue mural and painted them white.
During Circle the class was divided into three groups. Each group was given a
gutter, blocks and a hollow golf ball, a normal golf ball, and an empty or
full egg to roll down the ramp.
The children practiced having their “ball” roll down the ramp
to try to knock down the blocks at the bottom of the ramp.
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Nico
rolls his empty egg down the gutter toward the blocks.
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Rebecca
rolls the hollow golf ball down the gutter toward the blocks.
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Bobby's
egg falls apart at the end of the gutter but he does succeed in knocking
down the blocks.
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Victor
rolls the hollow golf ball down the ramp and knocks down the blocks.
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Day 19 - During circle Dotty gave a
demonstration on knocking down blocks using a gutter with a hollow and solid
golf ball. The children drew pictures in their journals about how they would
knock down blocks with both a solid or hollow golf ball and gutters.
Day 20 - In the art room the preschoolers
continued to work on the mural. Now that the sky has been completed the
ground crew begins to paint the hills and the grass on the mural.
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Leslie
paints the outline for the hill as Vic mixes his green paint.
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Victor
to paints the hill for the golf course.
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Circle was held outside
on a tarp. As circle commenced Dotty reminded the children about their
original ideas for the golf course, and their notion of “bringing
the outside in.” Dotty mentioned that now that it is springtime weather we
could actually golf outside.
She talked about our pending field trip to an actual miniature golf course.
She mentioned that perhaps we could open part of our miniature golf course
outside on our playground and maybe even have some hotdogs at our snack bar.
Dotty then reread to the children their previous words about golf course
ideas, and asked them to brainstorm a little bit more about what we could
have in our outside golf course.
Bobby – “ Obstacles are things that get in the
way !”
Edward, who was wondering about how to create a pond in our golf course, said
– “ When it rains in
spring we can make a big hole and the rain will fill it up! ”
Bobby agreed with Edward's idea.
Gruffydd – “ I would like to have
a diving board in the pond we create .”
Dotty - “We could make a diving board and people to go on the diving board with cardboard.”
Jewel suggests putting a box inside the pond to collect the water.
Nico, heeding a warning about a hole in the ground, says, “ We can make a hole and dig it very
deep, and when we want, we can fall in there .”
Henry, referring to the pond as a big hole in the ground, says, “ Try to hit the ball in the hole in the
ground .”
Dotty – “That can be like an obstacle, you can hit your ball over it or
even into it.”
Gruffydd – “ Maybe we can make a
cardboard train !”
Dotty talked to the
children about how every place has a name, and suggested that we give a name
to our miniature golf course. She asked the children if they had any ideas
for a name.
Nico – Bumblebee Golf Course
Gruffydd – Gumball Golf Course
Henry – Pinball Golf Course
Cathy– The Renaissance Golf Course
Edward– The Golf Club, it can be like a golf
club (one that you
hit the ball with) or a club
(where you play golf)!
Victor – The Dunkin' Golf
Course
As Circle ended and the
children proceeded to walk toward the playground Dotty asked all the children
to look at the “fort” on our own playground. She suggested
that perhaps when we create our own outdoor miniature course we could use
this fort as the tree house that Nico suggested we build as part of our course.
Day 21 -Constructive play - Based on the
children's suggestion of building a pond outside for the miniature golf
course the preschoolers dug two holes in the dirt of the playground to see if
water would remain in the hole.
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Nico,
Leo and Tim dig holes in the ground.
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Timothy
points to a root in his hole.
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Bobby,
Victor and Nico examine the hole they have dug.
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Day 22 - During constructive play time
Kate invited the children to join her outside on the playground.
It was a beautiful day and Kate had previously set up a mini golf course
outside with two interconnected bridges and a ditch connecting the two
bridges so that one child could shoot the ball down one path. There was an
additional ball contraption on the cement. Kate asked a few of the children
if they would like to go outside.
Victor said (as he was putting on his jacket) – “ A T is for real golf
not for mini golf .”
As the children moved outside Edward asked – “Are there teams
involved?”
Edward said that he wanted to have a practice hole. Kate set up the
additional contraption on the wood chips so that the children could practice
with it. There were two areas to golf. Gryff suggested that the preschoolers
combine the two holes so Leo, Laura, Gryff, Ally and Jewel dug a trench to
combine the two holes.
Laura asked “ How do you go through it? ”
Laura then began to guide the children through the drenches using a mini rake
to clear the woodchips out of the trench. Some of the children helped her do
this.
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Laura
clears the trench for the golf balls.
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Gryff
waits his turn while Leo and Jewel golf along the trench.
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Victor
scoots his ball from one bridge to the next.
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Bobby pushes his ball
onto the bridge with his golf club.
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Miniature Golf Project - Stage 3- Getting Ready
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