A Possible Inquiry Topic - November 2

Beginning after our Hallowe'en celebration, we noticed that the children were showing some interest in building a "city" in the Engineering Centre.  They began building elaborate structures and road ways.  When we asked them what they were building, they said it was Toronto.

The students began by building a base out of large, hollow blocks.  They then elevated the structure using foam brick pieces.  Flat blocks or bricks were placed on top to cover the structure.

Mrs. Piquette went and sat with the children to engage with them and pose questions.

Jake and Liam began by telling Mrs. Piquette that they made the place where the Blue Jays play baseball.

"What's that called?" asked Mrs. Piquette.

"The baseball field." Jake replied.

Next to the "baseball field," Tessa was quietly building a tall structure with the foam bricks.  Mrs. Piquette asked her what she was working on.

"It's the CN Tower." she replied.

The students involved then began to tell Mrs. Piquette about their visits to the CN Tower.  Jake and Tessa talked a lot about the glass floor at the CN Tower and how they weren't even afraid to walk on it.

The most interesting thing about the building that was happening in the Engineering Centre today was the sheer number of children involved.  While Jake, Liam, and Tessa worked on the CN Tower and the baseball field, Evan was quietly stacking blocks and lining up community helper figures.

Amir and Vinu were working on building roads around the city.  When they ran out of road pieces, Mrs. Piquette went and got some grey construction paper for them to use.  Vinu placed the roads, and Amir drew the white lines with a crayon.

Madden joined in with Amir and Vinu, adding tape to the paper so it wouldn't fall off of the blocks.  Maya also took an interest in the paper roads, helping Vinu figure out the next spot to put the roads.  She and Vinu got more blocks to put into place for the paper road pieces, while Madden taped them in place and Amir drew the lines.  Each time Amir finished one road piece, he would look up, smile, and say "finished!"  The four students worked together on building an elevated road way for several minutes.

Zachary became interested in the city and came over to see what the other students were working on.  At first he watched from afar, but then he joined in, and started "fixing" the broken parts of the city.  He also began adding small loose parts to the structure the other children had made.

Grace came over and joined Evan in making a road on the far side of the city, away from the large road that Amir and Vinu were building.

Zachary's "fixing" encouraged other children to start fixing as well.  Liam used a wooden branch block as a hammer and tapped the blocks into place.  Meanwhile, Bronson and Zachary added people to the "basement" of the baseball field.

As the carpet area started to fill up, Liam stood on top of the ramp leading up to the "baseball field" and looked around.  The students started talking about whether or not their "city" looked like Toronto.

Mrs. Piquette stood back with Mrs. Proud and looked at the city.  We observed the students and listened to them talking about Toronto.  Mrs. Piquette decided it may help if the students had a visual.  Bringing the computer over to the projector, we projected an image of the Toronto skyline on to the ceiling, just above where the students were working.

As we projected the image, Mrs. Piquette took a video of the children reacting to the photo of Toronto.