If you drop down to the previous post, you'll learn that our kindergarteners read Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton. After hearing the story, they wondered if the workers at our construction site had names for their machines.
So we asked the folks at Suffolk Construction. They said that most of their heavy equipment may have names like "front-end loader" or "bulldozer," but few have their own special names like Mike Mulligan's Mary Anne.
Don't be sad, kindergarteners, you will be able to change that--at least, for one very, very big piece of machinery.
In a few weeks, a huge 400-ton crane is going to take up residence on our construction site. Its job is to lift and move the steel columns and beams that will become the new buildings' frames. The crane has to be a giant to do this work. It will look something like the one in the picture below:
Will it be the same color as the one in this picture? We don't know. We DO know that the crane doesn't have a nickname now. But, it's going to. Even better, our kindergarteners are going to name it!
Starting soon, our kindergarteners will begin their NAME THAT CRANE! campaign. They will begin by nominating names for the crane. Eventually they will vote by secret ballot, of course, and tally up the results. By the end of the experience, not only will that crane have a name, but the kids will have also learned how to vote in a democratic election.
