A new theme I introduced during the year was the Mechanic. I used the book Busy Garage to introduce the topic.
Set Up:
For the socio-dramatic area I used my gazebo tent as my garage, I had builders tools which I added to the tent. I also found overalls in the dress up section of Dunnes which were a great addition to the area. I was fortunate that my colleagues helped me with finding vehicles for my garage. They gave me a loan of a ride on tractor and a little tykes car which really helped to set the scene.
Not forgetting the office section of the garage, we had the phones, cash register and laptop.
In small world there were a variety of cars and tractors along with a garage that a parent kindly donated.
In construction children were given free play to make a car using the build your own play centre, or to build a garage with the large blocks.
I changed the sand to a science area and using ramps and cars the children investigated how far the cars would travel. They used their books to build ramps and make them higher for this area too.
Lastly Junk Art, the children made cars and other vehicles from recycled materials sent in by the parents.
Books: I used the Busy Garage to introduce the topic, we had lots of non-fiction books in the library too.
There is lots of scope for cross-curricular integration with this topic. A thematic plan along with a parents’ newsletter for the Mechanic topic is available in my Mash.ie store.
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