Building the Kopak Tree at the ECC

Submitted by Linda Campbell

We consider the ECC (Early Childhood Center preschool at Woody Creek) to be the foundation of the philosophical belief in child-centered, experiential, integrated learning. How we achieve this is by observing each child, listening to their comments and having group discussions about what is of interest and relevant to each person in our group. Many exciting ideas have become reality in the classroom. Every year we transform their ideas and change the classroom and loft to represent those ideas.

Every year the children begin establishing their relationships through dramatic play scenarios. Last year they all were wild animal families: mommies, daddies and babies. After many months of play they focused on animals that were mostly from the rain forest. We brought books into the classroom of all kinds of animals for them to browse and learn more facts. We had many group discussions about their favorite animals and where they lived. We had maps to point out locations of different habitats. We read many stories about animals. Finally, we read a story called The Great Kapok Tree. The children decided that we should build a kapok tree and make the animals from the book to live in the tree.

So that is what we did. We built a tree that went from the floor to the ceiling and went into the loft. We make big leaves for the tree and bugs and butterflies roosted on them. We made long vines that had beautiful flowers. We made snakes out of stockings and bean bag frogs. We also made a tropical bird and a cheetah out of recycled plastic bottles that were covered in paper mache. We even made penguins!