January 14th, 2020

A Police Chat
On Thursday, we'll be getting a visit from a real police officer (a good friend of Gigi's).  We decided to discuss this with the children, and ask questions about some things they have been mentioning lately in their dramatic play on the playground.  For instance, sometimes the children pretend to use magic wands to defeat bad guys, and other times they take the teachers to jail.   Scroll down to read highlights of the conversation.

(Photo on the right: Wolf B and his sister Cedar found a special police officer guarding Buckingham Palace!)

Gigi: He’s gonna bring his motorcycle and his car.
Lane: Is he gonna bring his badge?
Oliver: He drives the police car! And sometimes he drives the ambulance too.
Palmer: No, only police guys drive police stuff.
Lane: Is he gonna grab his K9?... it’s a police dog.  I hope he’s gonna bring the walkie talkie, or more than one.
Melanie:  You had mentioned a badge too.  What is a badge?
Palmer: It’s something silver.
Lane: He puts it on his arm.  He looks at it every day.
Gigi: So that everyone knows he’s a police officer!  It’s a star.

Question 1: What does a police officer do?
Emilia: It gives out tickets if people go speeding or slow.
Cannon: And he takes people to jail.
Palmer: If they do something bad.
Grace: We have to ask him why he takes people to jail.
Palmer: Only if they break the law and steal something.
Cannon: Cause remember, I said if you ask him a bad word he will take you to jail.
Emilia: No, he won’t.

Question 2:  How does the police catch a bad guy?
Palmer: He just drives in a police car.
Olivia: Yeah he goes really fast and catch…
Emilia: Yeah.
Palmer: Like WEE-OO WEE-OO…
Oliver: On the racing pad, he can go super fast.
Evelyn: I never did go in the police car.
(Many say “me neither”)

Question 3:   Why do bad guys have to go to jail?
Cannon: Because they’re bad.
Palmer: They try to rob stuff and break it.
Cannon:  They try to break police cars.  But I can roar at bad people.
Gigi:  If they be bad, not all the people go away, just some, when they’re being bad.  And the police take them to the chief so the chief can decide what happens to them.
Palmer:  The chief of police.
Grace: That means they decide who goes to jail or prison and who can just walk away.

Question 4:  If you go to jail, what happens?
Grace: You have to stay there forever and drink jail water and it’s not good for you.  And they’re kind of being bad, but they’re putting bad people in jail.
Olivia:  But we never go to jail.
Lane:  When you’re in jail you have handcuffs which makes your hands don’t touch anything, and you can’t do anything.  And you can’t move out, and the handcuffs are sticked to the jail and you can’t get out.
Emilia:  When they put you in jail, they feed you very bad stuff and very bad milk and water.
Oliver: Some people get out of jail.
Grace: No, they don’t get out.

Question 5:   When Steve the firefighter visited us, he said he sometimes gets scared when he crawls through the fire.  Do you think police officers get scared too?
Palmer: They just take care of people.  Before the ambulance or helicopter gets there.
Lane:  They take care of people, so if a burglar knocked down someone’s house, so the bricks don’t fall on you.
Melanie: Do you think that the police have to be brave to catch the bad guys?  Or scared? Or both?
Emilia: Both.
Palmer:  Just brave, not scared.

Question 6:  How does a police officer stay safe?
Palmer:  By following the law.
Melanie:  How do they do that? Could you explain that a bit more?
Palmer:  If someone does something bad, they just always say, be safe and follow the law.  It’s like a special rule.
(for) Everybody.  In the whole globe.
Grace: Yes.
Melanie:  Even in Kenya and Germany?
Palmer:  Yes.  Everywhere has police cars.

Question 7:  Does anyone know what the numbers “911” mean?
Maren: If there’s a fire, then do that number!
Emilia: On your phone, very quick if it’s a real emergency.
Brooke: What else could be an emergency?
Emilia:  If somebody got really really really hurt.
Cannon: Or hot lava.
Brooke:  What about if there’s a bad guy, could you call 911?
Palmer: And the K9 unit.

Drawing Practice: Beginning to move past the "stick figure" and toward a 3D looking body using long thin oval shapes ("hot dogs" as we have been calling them) and circle shapes for the head and torso.

Travel Area: Off to Germany and Kenya!
Using digital projection, we created a landscape looking like the German countryside.  Children could pretend that we were leisurely driving around and looking out the windows of the car.   However, the craziest thing happened.  We found dinosaurs.  
Wolf M: There's T-Rexes coming into view.
Cannon: Yes.  I see a long neck. When we're at Germany, there will be a lot of long necks.
Wolf: It's up ahead.  They're up the hill.
Palmer: Look, I see a railroad crossing.
​(Jessica suggests finding out which dinosaurs live in Germany)
Lane: I could give you my phone because Alexandra is on my phone and you could ask her.
Emilia: I'm calling Alexandra.

Later, we switched to a Kenyan "safari" type trip, in a fast-moving Jeep across the savanna.  Maren saw the Kenyan landscape and said, "It's the desert.  Because in the desert there's sand ALL over.  And there's buildings made out of sand! People are living in them.  There's nothing else to make it out of.  No trees, only sand.  It's yellow sand.  It's so hot.  And when you do this (hand gesture of sprinkling), it sprinkles down.  It's not like the kinetic sand."

2 mini stories from the playground

• Lane and Evelyn show the "wise" pose
• Palmer saves Grace from imminent danger and fends off evil pool noodles with his magic wand.  Grace says "Thanks Palmer." she turns to the others and says, "I'll never be your daughter again!"