Hammers, Nails, Screws and Screwdrivers

We started our new theme for this week ‘Kings of Construction’ in both classes today. When we arrived in the class this morning we were very surprised to see four big toolboxes on the table with hammers, pliers, screwdrivers, metal rulers, saws and sanding blocks. There was a special wood covering for the table to stop it getting scratched. Alongside the toolboxes were some pieces of wood and some woodworking vices. In the tops of the pieces of wood were 4 nails and after we talked a little bit about safety and how to use the hammers we hammered the nails into the wood. We were really careful to hold the wood so we didn’t come near our hands with the hammers too. Once we had hammered them all down we turned the wood over, replaced the hammer in the toolbox and used a screwdriver to put as many screws into the wood as we could. Once we had finished we also took the screws out so that the wood was ready for our friends too. On the table next to the toolboxes were some lollipop squares with a cross braced lollipop. We are going to use these to make a tower game but first we needed to choose four of the flat structures and glue and clamp them together> We also put some elastic bands on the outside to help them stay together until they are dry. On the main carpet we had lots of wooden blocks to play with and both Ava and Michaela really were careful and made a beautiful house each. They looked so proud of their work, Well Done girls! We did a short introduction to our theme of construction and told them how ‘Construction’ means ‘making things’. When we looked around the room we saw lots of things which had been made such as the kitchen play center, chairs, a wooden mannequin etc. When we looked at the decoration real starfish we knew it had not been made by someone and came from nature. We looked at some picture cards and saw some of the tools we had used first thing in the morning such as the screwdriver, a hammer, and a vise. We asked “What is the difference between toys and tools?” Tokutaro got it right and said “You play with Toys, not tools”. The park was very warm and it was great to see our friends in Shelley’s class this morning too. We returned to the class and went straight in to circle time together. On the floor we noticed a large red square marked out with tape. When we looked at some pictures of the Tokyo tower we could see there were many other buildings around it. The red square was going to be the space for us to build a tower together. We soon realized that we needed to see who was the tallest so that he or she could put the highest pieces on the tower. Adrien saw the picture of the crane and Ava remembered the ladder card from the morning activity and they suggested we use these to build our tower even higher. We each took a block and placed it in the square but the pieces were too far apart and we didn’t get to make it very high. Next time we will put the blocks closer together and use the triangles to help support it. We then had a lot of fun with the book ‘Fix-it-duck’ which told the story of a duck trying to fix his roof with some tools and makes lots of mistakes with his friends belongings. It had a funny ending too. All our Love, Darren, Ayaka and Nanako