Creative thinkers
We encourage creative development through activities that are meaningful and relevant to a child’s life experiences. Young children express ideas in many different ways, including words, gestures, drawings, paintings, sculpture, construction, music, dramatic play, movement, and dance.
Rainbow 4 designs complex machines
After learning to use simple machines in class, Rainbow 4 applied their knowledge in the real world. On a field trip to the Museum of Science, the children saw a variety of complex machines, then returned to the classroom to design their own!
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Exploration
Children manipulate various simple machines during Free Play, in projects and through independent experimentation.
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Teamwork
When asked to problem-solve, the children collaborate as a team using familiar simple machines. In this case, children use common objects (e.g. a broom handle) to create a pulley to lift a small load.
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Experiences outside the classroom
Our field trip to the Museum of Science gave new meaning to our lessons learned in the classroom.
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Simple to complex
Pictured here is one of the Museum's complex machines (comprised of simple machines).
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Fascinating complexity
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"pulley"
Art and engineering often go hand in hand. Here, using phonetic spelling, a child designs his own pulley system.
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Let's make it our own
The children draw from their experiences and convey it using paper, markers and imagination. With this project, we took what we learned from our unit on machines and dreamed up complex machines of our own!
Photos: Lauren (teacher), Charan Devereaux
More reading
As children apply their knowledge in the real world, Bigelow also seeks to make a connection between classroom, community and citizenship.
