Always Thinking Outside the Box

Thinking outside the box is something students at FWCD learn right from the start. In January, junior kindergarten students focused their studies on transportation. Their lessons culminated in constructing various modes of transportation – from a cardboard box. The students enjoyed the Disney movie Cars before revving up their engines, with drivers’ licenses in tow, to show off their creations to families in a car parade on January 28 along the Butler Kindergarten Building and Fischer Dining Pavilion sidewalks.

Students researched all kinds of transportation, from walking and roller skating to tankers and jet airplanes, and then chose a mode of transportation that excited them. Junior Kindergarten Assistant Lynn McBroom read the book Not a Box by Antoinette Portis and explained to the class that they would be turning a plain cardboard packing box into their chosen mode of transportation. Step one: making a paper model of what they wanted their box to look like. 

From there, the students began transforming their cardboard boxes into well-planned modes of transportation. They used geometric shapes to form things like the wings of an airplane or the wheels on a bike. They engineered seat belts and steering wheels from yarn and paper plates. 

Thanks to this project, all FWCD junior kindergarteners are thinking a little bit more “outside the box” and enjoyed the process of planning, designing, participating, questioning, and observing as they created.