Art - Shapes in a Fire Truck

"How We Organize Ourselves" 
Central Idea: The work people perform helps build community
Having started with the book, "Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do" by Kathryn Heling, the children had a guessing game about what jobs people do through observing people's uniforms and tools. It was amazing to hear our children have such rich language about occupation.

Cameron - People who fix cars are called mechanics.
Trystan - Painters are like artists.
Bela, Francine and Max - Milkman is one kind of farmer. (We learned the word, dairy farmer!)

As the children are expressing a strong interest in firefighters. We decided to follow the children's interests and needs to explore more upon the topic.

Before we used different shapes to make a firetruck collage, the children played a shape I spy game as a review of their shapes. With a picture of a fire truck, the children named out the shapes they would need for their fire trucks. Gluing and placing each part of a fire truck into the right position, the children were capable of forming the structure of a fire truck. Moreover, many children had discussions about how firefighters put out fires and save people in a community.

"The ladder needs some steps! "

"Look, these are the wheels on my fire truck. Can you see a hose?"

It was very nice and rewarding to watching the children fully engaged and participated the art activity. Their bright eyes were telling us how much they enjoyed this activity. There will be more extended activities for the children to explore what does a fire fighter do and what other community helpers we have.