Fire Fighters

Fire Fighter play is full of story that relies on children's knowledge of the world and their imagination too.  In this opening video we hear Arthur expressing the importance of having hoses on the fire truck and Spencer talks about the 'jet pack' (oxygen tank) that fire fighters need to breath.  Playing enables child and teacher to connect over real life tools, exercise listening/understanding, and learn new vocabulary in the context.  We do this by sharing our imagination, along with a willingness to believe in each other--very powerful stuff!  

In the next episode I avail of the opportunity to broaden our view on fire fighters in response to Arthur's story.  Fire fighters are more than a stereo-type super hero; they are father's, have families, enjoy swimming etc.  

In this scenario, you can note that playing not only practices learned vocabulary over and over again, but children also use simple objects, like blocks, to represent complex ideas.  (In other words, children are using higher order abstract thinking.)  Play takes life seriously.  Vivian Paley says 'play is child's work'.  We are writing, organizing, preparing for an emergency, making plans, following through, being responsive and responsible, using our knowledge to construct a story...

In the next Action videos, I introduce new job ideas in order to support new players entry into the existing scenario, for example, I talk about needing a mechanic and then suggest that fire fighters work on their vehicles when they get back to the station.  Also note that I try to reflect back to the players, all t he stories of their play (while they are pretending to rest) so that all the players in the group (Arthur, Spencer, Miles, Finch, Ayush and Luna) can be informed and hear their ideas being valued as a group experience.

This little video is just a chuckle...good thing Luna was not fixing a new iphone!

Children and teacher share ideas for play in the story.  Some ideas grow contagious, for example, Ayush uses a ramp block to represent a ladder to climb a tree, then more friends gather blocks to create for themselves a plausible representation of a ladder so they too can feel the experience.