Exploring and Mapping the Basement

The Meadow room children have been thinking about the basement, and the murals which are painted on the wall there. There is one, a picture of a big rabbit, that some people feel afraid of, while others just love making up magical stories about it .

Nolan "Are you brave enough, Oliver, to go to the black bunny, and touch him?"
Oliver "Yeah"
Nolan "Maybe we could go together."

figuring out how to show stairs that have 4 landings and a doorway at the bottom

The discussion of the bunny led to theories about how to trap it, and the idea of hanging other pictures nearby -maybe to keep it company, or maybe to keep an eye on it.

"If the stairs are there, we got to make it so that door is on the map right next to the stairs"

Nancy had worked with some of the children to make a model of the basement, to figure out which walls might be available to hang paintings on. This model wasn't quite right, because the children didn't have a clear picture of what the basement looks like. So, on Friday we took a trip down the stairs to work on a map of the basement.

checking out a pile of stuff

Oliver video taped our tour, and then we went upstairs to draw the map. Referring to the video tape was very helpful, but there were still a few places the children weren't sure about. We brought the map downstairs again to check where a couple of doorways were, and how to draw the stairs.

in the 'light saber room', working out where the doorway is on the map