April 11th, 2023

I need to see my friend
in Mini Town. - Saul

As our Tucker Room neighborhood, which has first been set up on the construction area table, has been expanding, the children repeatedly expressed their desire to connect our neighborhood with the buildings in "Mini Town". In here you can find our classroom's Connected House, Shelly's House and Toad's  Guesthouse as well as our paper houses.

They are both kind of the same thing. It needs to be connected. The bridge is to connect it. So we can go across the river. The key bridge. It's the Potomac River. - Saul
​

One of our first attempts to connect Mini Town with the Neighborhood was to create a bridge spanning across the "Potomac River". After some reflection, we realized that this new structure is taking up too much space and prohibits us from getting to cozy area and Tucker Closet safely. Together we brainstormed some other ideas of how we could connect the two areas. 

​We can move it (Neighborhood table) into Shelly area because they’re all houses.
​We could connect a bridge across. - Remy
​

But if we make a bridge you would take up even more space (of the classroom, considering space KW would need). - Lily

Yeah we have to bend down (if we would have to walk underneath a bridge that spans across the classroom). We could scooch the table over (close to mini town). To the classroom. - Jade

​The children's critical and empathetic thinking and creative suggestions were very helpful for us when we
​rearranged the classroom on Wednesday afternoon:

​What has changed in the Tucker Room?

Is construction area connected
to Mini Town? - Cate

​Cozy area doesn't look normal. - Saul
Nothing looks normal. - Hugh
The carpet (nugget) is different now.
​It's curved. - Michael

Shelly Area is way bigger. - Wilder
That's why we changed it - Hugh

I like it. Much better, but I wasn't expecting this. - Hugh

​That's moved and that's moved and that's moved. To make them look closer. - Cape
​

It's been different for a long time.
​We might need some time to adjust. - Wilder
Yeah, like at daylight savings. - Hugh

​During our first morning meeting in the newly arranged space, the idea of connecting the two tables via a bridge came up again:

​Besides from constructing a bridge between our neighborhood table and the Connected House table, a few of the children decided to explore and use the now larger space in construction area. Collaboratively over the course of two days, they created different areas that were part of one large structure. 
​

Hugh and Jack expanded on their previous work and continued adding more details to a "boat". 

​
​It's a home depot boat. It brings thing to home depot that it needs to be a store. Like boxes. - Hugh

​Indeed, Home Depot was part of the children's structure. Cate, Wilder, Saul and Hugh collaborated on creating "Home Depot". Right next to Home Depot you entered "Snorty's Paradise", a comfortable home for Cate's lovie, Snorty, which had a practical cheese dispenser on its roof. One of Snorty's neighbor was Saul's lovie, Owly, who also shared a roof with Home Depot. Directly behind there, Jack and Jade welcomed you to their large "cat home" and zoo for animals. After a long day in the neighborhood, you could take the zip line to Frannie and Lily's spa, which offers many ways to relax, such as a pool or a nail salon.