Early Years Field Trip

Early Years Field Trip Children from the Early Years Centre went on a field trip to the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, affectionately known by them as “The Lion Bridge”. For a full report on this trip, the creating of the mascots, the measuring of the bridge, the creation of an eBook about ‘Our Budapest’ and the reflection upon their experiences, read more below.

The Early Years field trip was a great success for those children who chose this experience to enhance their learning, knowledge and understanding of their project interests. 

On Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd April, children from the Early Years Centre went on a field trip to the Széchenyi Chain Bridge.

After an exciting mini-bus ride along the river, the children began their journey across the bridge from the Buda side of our city. They sat on the grass and discussed how to measure the bridge, and where their measurement would begin and end. The children decided that the first pair of lions would be their starting point and that they would end at the lions on the other side. The children made some estimates and then used trundle wheels to count how many metres the bridge was. This encountered lots of problem solving as each group had slightly different measurements. The children discovered that some groups had lifted their wheel or walked in a zigzag which had affected their final calculation. The measurements ranged from between 370m and 405m, and so the children agreed that the bridge was around 400m.

Along the way, our younger children enjoyed counting boats, comparing their sizes, and discussing where the boats were going. Other fascinations and questions involved wondering where the river traveled to, discussing how deep the river is, observing the bridges shadows, and sharing ideas about what the bridge is made from, and how it is held together.

 

As well as the mathematical development that took place, the children were full of inspiration for our eBook about ‘Our Budapest’. This is a project inspired by the idea to create something for new families in our school community as an introduction to their new home-away-from-home. The children took photographs along the way, or asked teachers to take pictures of them in front of different landmarks and interest points, whilst holding our two Budapest mascots, “Dino the dinosaur”, and “Fluffy the unicorn”. Dino and Fluffy are the voices of our eBook and were handmade by the children with Ms. Monika at the beginning of the week, based on their earlier mascot designs, and they have become much loved members of the whole group already!

 

On Monday 25th April the children used a thinking tool called Y Chart, to reflect upon their experiences during their field trip. They focused on their senses to respond to three considerations, whilst creating black ink drawings:

1. What did you see? What did our field trip look like?

2. What did you hear? What did our field trip sound like?

3. How did you feel on our field trip?

We would like to thank all staff involved, bus drivers, volunteer helpers, and parents for making these field trips possible, and look forward to sharing more from our upcoming field trips to Fűvészkert, Hungary’s oldest Botanical Gardens, in next week’s newsletter.