“We made a city!”

When we last left off on the building and city thread, the children had just visited Saul Melman’s Best of All Possible Worlds sculpture (other wise known as The Doors) and each of them had done a drawing of the building that they imagined behind one of these glass doors.  At that point, Miles declared…

“Ahhh, I wish we were building the buildings.”

So, we took his lead and decided to do just that. The children were provided with cardboard, scissors, a variety of tape, brass fasteners, hand drills, yarn, paper clips, markers, stickers, and safety goggles…and the children were eager to get right to work!

 

“That actually looks like a skylight, Tait.” CHARLIE N. (noticing Tait’s circle cut-out on his chosen piece)

“Charlotte, your house looks pretty good…I want to attach mine to that (Charlotte’s house)”  WES

“Now I need a smokestack.  I’m gonna make a factory building.”  CASE

“Don’t forget your safety goggles, Louis. Safety first!”  TRAVERS

“When my mom comes to parent help next, she’s gonna be so surprised.”  LOUIS

Addie's house
"The sign says Fast Airport." WES
“I need another piece of wood!"(searching for another cardboard piece) CHARLIE N.
Rosalie's farmhouse
Tait's chicken house
“I just need a roof now!” LUCA
Caroline's skyscraper
“Mine was a museum...These are the gutters.” (referring to the Sharpie lines that he added going down his building) CHARLIE S.
Charlotte's house
Ruthie's grocery store, where they sell marshmallows
“A Boston building. That one." (pointing to the tallest building in a book) TRAVERS
"This is how you make a window (white rectangular sticker with clear tape over the top of it). The tape is the glass. Oh! My window opens! See? A sky window.” CASE
“I have a doggie door to lift them up with a rope and get them in.” LOUIS
“My house is a big house so I need a lot of windows.” IAN
“Do you know what this is? My dad’s work! It has 1,000 windows!...Mine has Pi. Don’t forget, Pi’s a number.” JULIA
“This is the Empire State Building. Do you know how many stairs there are in the real Empire State Building? One Million!” MILES

On Friday, we rolled out a large hand drawn street map and finally brought our buildings together…

“It’s a road!”

                “It’s four square.”

“It’s a road for cars!” LUCA

                                    “A lot of roads.” ROSALIE

                                                               “It’s 1, 2, 3, 4,…7, 8.” IAN

“A station!  They drive, drive, drive and they’re in the station.” ROSALIE

                                     “All the stations and giant buildings and gas stations.” TRAVERS

                                                                 “I think you park in those white spaces.” CHARLIE N.

Where do you find all these together?

“Cities.” MILES

“We made a city!” CAROLINE (after we placed our buildings about)

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
 -Jane Jacobs from The Death and Life of Great American Cities