Pouring Cement

     They have a big machine with a long tube that pours cement in between the wood forms.  The wood forms were built to hold the cement in place until it hardens, then it will be called concrete.

By Grace

 

 

Rebar

They are making forms out of rebar.  Forms are for holding buildings.  Right now they are just making polls (piers).  Soon they are going to pour the cement in the holes with the rebar forms.

 

By Ryland

Drilling Holes

That is a driller. It pulled in today. It is drilling. It is drilling down to the earth.  They are putting rebar in the holes that it made.  Then, they are going to pour the cement in. 

By Henry  

 

The Cement Truck

On the 14^th, a cement mixer pulled in. A cement truck has sand, stone, water and cement in it. Can you see the stomach of the cement truck?  It is called a drum. And we are under construction!

By Brodie

Week of December 10-14

We saw a lot of things last week. We cannot play on our play ground because we are under construction.  They took all of the play equipment out.  This is a picture of a new tool. The machine is called a road roller.  It is made to flatten the surface. They used it so they could flatten the ground and place the new building.  They dug a lot of holes so they could place the building.  It was a lot of fun to watch.

By Claire

Saying goodbye to the equipment :(

Each day the view changes for us and it is exciting.  We are enjoying watching all of the trucks in action. The workers are wearing hardhats and using their tools to take the playground equipment apart.  A forklift came to remove the zip line.   We were sad today to see the equipment come down, but playing on the Great Lawn hasn’t been so bad. 

Backhoe Loader

 

 

Today we learned about a backhoe loader.  A backhoe loader is one of the most useful machines for clearing the site.  We watched the backhoe loader use its bucket and hydraulic arms to pick up cement, dirt and wood chips.  It was cool!

 

On Monday a yellow bulldozer pulled into our playground.  There are a lot of parts on the bulldozer.  It has tracks, wheels with teeth, a windshield, hydraulic arms, a cab, a ripper tool and a blade.  We learned that bulldozers can be used to rip out concrete.  First, the bulldozer uses the ripper tool which is 3 long prongs, at the back of the bulldozer, to crack the concrete.  We got to see the broken concrete with metal bars sticking out of it.  The metal bars are called rebar.  Rebar is meant for holding the concrete together to make it stronger.  The bulldozer carried away the broken concrete.  It was a really noisy and exciting day! 

Welcome to our classroom blog!  Recently, many changes have begun outside our classroom window with the construction of The Dillard Family Center for Early Childhood Learning and new playground.  We thought it would be fun to document the process with pictures and written posts and to share them on this blog, especially because we are lucky enough to have a "front row seat" for all of the action!  In addition, we will share what we are learning about the construction process including the tools and the trucks, our favorite!  We hope you enjoy our perspective of this journey.