Sunday, 13 November 2016

Building


Building allows children to express their own creativity and ideas through construction. Students problem solve, invent and learn about balance, stability, symmetry. They also learn to negotiate and communicate with each other and with their materials. Through exploration in building with wooden blocks, magnatiles, legos, castle blocks and many other mediums, children have a chance to be a part of “shared episodes rich in sustained shared thinking and offer opportunities for joint wondering, problem solving and reciprocal learning.”  Woods, A (2013), Child-Initated Play and Learning









“We need to make the longest and biggest Star Wars ship, right guys? The magnatiles will make it really strong too! It has to have different areas for the different people.” –Marcus

“It has to be this long. Like these blocks.” (Working quietly for awhile.) “See guys? Marcus and I made the long train so we know how long the ship can be.”
-Lachlan

“This is an important structure. All the little structures have to go around the big one. The big one is the big defense. The little parts have to attach to the big one to distract the other ships. It is strong if it is big and put together correct.”  -Siddharth

“Should we add more to the top?” AJ asked. “Will that make it stronger too?”

“Strength comes from the bottom first. If the bottom isn’t strong, the top will just fall in and it doesn’t matter how awesome it is.”  -Samay

This group has worked hard on various ships over the past couple of weeks. Other students come in and out to add parts or involve themselves in the conversations. The students then decided to draw what they were building, and although some of the structures changed in the drawings, the thread of making strong, intricate structures continued.

“When we build rocket ships, they are really really awesome. We have to work so hard, right guys? You can’t always just build one by yourself! Sometimes you need to help each other!”  -Lachlan




“The Star Wars Building of magnatiles is really important. It is the middle of all of the activities that are going on. See? You have to use all of the pieces together, otherwise it is just nothing.”  -Siddharth



“Big Star Wars! All people get to go inside their own rooms. Darth Vader, Luke, Storm Troopers, Iron Man, the pilots, guards, more Storm Troopers…the place needs to be big enough to fit them. The construction of a place is really really important, you know.”  -Marcus


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