In the Classroom: The Fireflies

Our focus caught on fire!

The Fireflies have settled into their newly renovated classroom and teachers have gotten a chance to watch their play and see what types of things they are interested in these days. 

While we took some time to get to know each other last month, we noticed that the group had a pretty common interest in firefighters and trucks. The teachers agreed that this should be our new investigation! 

We began by asking the Fireflies, "What did they want to know about fire stations?" Many of the responses had fire trucks mentioned in them. 

We then started adding fire trucks to the tables with our morning invitations and we also added some to the block area. The focus caught on fire (pardon the pun) and the group began talking and pretending along with other activities such as puzzles and dramatic play.

The next question we asked was about fire trucks. We asked, "What is on a fire truck?" After a class discussion, we searched for answers together on our lap top. We found a lot of information (and still have more to go).

We learned about pumper trucks and aerial ladder trucks and ground ladders. We learned the a fire truck has a space for tools. Josh wondered if they had a hammer. 

We looked at many different fire trucks and learned that not all of them are red. That was a shock to our young learners!

We will continue this investigation with more questions about fire trucks and fire safety! We are planning to go to a local fire house soon and check out for ourselves all the tools and different kinds of trucks the firefighters need to do their job.

Next week we will also begin building our own fire truck to be used in the dramatic play area, along with some other cool activities surrounding their new interest. 

It's always a pleasure to teach new things to the students when they are eager to know all about it. Having an investigation lead by their ideas is what makes the process of learning so exciting.