This past week we've been working on the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty". We recited, sang it, read a mini book about it, illustrated it and acted it out. Now it was time to save Humpty from his dangerous wall sitting tendencies.
I talked with the class about how we keep ourselves save during activities where we might fall. We came up with helmets, knee pads, elbow pads, band aids..
I told the kids it was their job to design a safety suit for Humpty Dumpty. I put them in 6 groups of 2 or 3. I gave them the following materials: A large sheet of paper, a length of adding machine tape, a paper towel, 3 pipe cleaners, a small padded envelope, a length of masking tape and an egg. (I used supplies I had on hand.) They could use scissors but nothing else. I showed them how to tear the masking tape in pieces if desired. If they ran out of materials they had to make do.
I learned:
Have extra eggs. The kids may break their eggs in the design process but I didn't want learning to stop there so I gave the groups another egg.
Kids are pretty adaptable. When they are told they have limited supplies they make do.
Make sure the egg breakage happens outside, in a place where it can end up on the bottom of shoes, and tracked in public spaces.
Keep a scissors and a garbage can handy after the fall off the wall.
Each group had to explain their design and how it works before dropping it off the wall. (Off the top of a high play structure works well too).
As a follow up each group talked about any design changes they would make if they could do it again.
And we may because I have a number of eggs who survived the fall. Way to save Humpty!
