Centers

This is a brief overview of some of the things children chose to do during project work.

Many of the children were becoming more and more interested in how a boat moves through water and were very interested in pursuing methods of propulsion. At the water table the children had small boats that moved in different ways to experiment with. (The favorite was a tiny steam boat that used a candle to heat the boiler)
Designing boat hulls from water soluble plasticine to hold weight. It was here that pictures of boats were used as references and the children experimented with several designs and tested their creations. The best design actually held 30 pennies.
Testing sail materials. Suitability of fabric was tested in front of a fan. Several materials were quickly discarded and others favored.
Concepts of balance and stability became very real and clear for the children as they constructed small boats from wood.
Illustrating was also very important. Many of the children were fascinated by the plasticine illustrations in a Barbara Reid book Two by Two and so they began making their own detailed pictures.

Writing
Books - literature and factual information
Testing materials for floating and sinking
Exploring properties of water through Science experiments
Blocks- big wooden blocks, lego, small blocks and junk materials
Variety of art materials
Computers - one for internet searches and one for writing and surveying. We downloaded some blueprints for boats to have a closer look at.