"Let's make a city!" -James
The Pre-K children are very interested in the city that they live in and how it works. They also enjoy sharing their knowledge regarding the cities they have visited and even the cities they have lived in. We decided to ask them a few questions during our morning meeting and find out what they know and what questions they have. Below is a conversation we recorded and transcribed.
“We have to make a road here because there is a road that goes around my building. -Luke M.”
“This is a building in Austin. There was a fire and it went all the way through the whole building. All the people were safe but the building got wrecked. -Grant”
- Teacher: What makes a City?
- Ben: Builders!
- Cian: How do they make the sidewalks?
- James: A City has a lot of buildings and people.
- Ben: There are couches where people sit-down to watch kid shows.
- Cian: You mean inside houses?
- Ben: Yes, that’s what I mean.
- Sophia: There are buildings and homes.
- Cian: And apartments, like I live in an apartment.
- Ben: There are trains.
- Cian: Those are underground. When I go to Rhode Island and I take the train from Penn Station the train we take goes outside, it’s not underground. So there are trains underground and trains up-ground.
- Luke K: There are boats in the river in the city too.
- Cian: And trains are also aboveground.
- Luke M: Do you know what he’s talking about? Trains go aboveground because you know what, sometimes trains go over bridges and the bridge isn't on the track. The train goes on the the tracks and over the bridge. And sometimes they go to NJ.
- Asha: I’ve been to Michigan that’s a city.
- Grant: Do you know that I lived in Austin before but that city was filled with water and I can’t go there anymore because they wrecked out all the buildings and there’s X buildings left.
- Cian: Why did they do that?
- Grant: Because the Health department shut down every building and house in Austin.
- James: Where did all the buildings go?
- Grant: They destroyed them to bricks.
- James: And maybe they took the bricks and brought them to NYC. There were a little bit buildings and now they built more buildings here in NYC.
- Cian: Grant where did all the people go to live if all of the buildings got shut down?
- James: They can live in new places, like in NYC.
- Sophia: What about all their stuff?
- Cian: Where’s all their furniture? They’re leaving all of their stuff and beds.
- Sophia: How about if quickly they put all of their stuff in a moving truck and they can move all their stuff somewhere else.
- Cian: They can move to another city! Or another state, or Colorado.
- Sophia: What about their friends?
- James: They can make more in the new city. They need to get born. They need to stay in somebody’s tummy and they they grow. And then they need to get it out of their mouth and that’s how somebody gets born.
- Cian: But babies don’t come out of the mouth…
- Sophia: Yeah, they come out of your tummy, so they just cut your tummy and then they sew it back down.
- Cian: How do they get it out of your tummy?
- James: Out of your mouth.
- Cina: Nooo.
- James: Yeah!
- Cian: No because when I was born Ryder was already born and he was watching me come out of mommy’s belly when it popped. I just bounced on the couch and they put mommy’s belly’s back together at the hospital.
- Grant: It’s a really long story how my Fin was born.
- Cian: How did he come alive? How did he get out of your mom’s belly?
- Grant: because she got bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and mommy’s belly opened all the way up and closed.