As it turned out, the students were very good about leaving the trains untouched until "the railroad guys" got there later in the afternoon. Today's first lesson was an explanation to the class as a whole on how the trains are considered to run east-west, and that going east on one side of the platform does not look like going east on the other (the compass directions "wrap around" the end of the platform along with the track). We also showed pictures of what the various structures were to look like (from various history books) after they work on them. Then in small groups, we did familiarization with the platform: how it's operated; how to properly handle rolling stock, switches, etc.; how to turn blocks on and off, and direction and throttle control. This was done in rotations of 4-5 children at a time, each of the two "railroad guys" taking 2-3 at once. Pictured at left is "Mr. Bill" showing one of the students how to throw a switch and how to "read" a switch (predict which way the train will go through it). [Later, we developed a worksheet on "How to Read a Switch": PDF, 46Kb. You'll need the Adobe Acrobat Reader for PDF files. It's free.]
The second picture at left is a wider view of the platform area in the classroom with Mr. Bill's group on the sugar mill side (right) and my group on the yard side (left). Note the map of the Santa Maria Valley railroads hanging on the wall (top center in the picture) - thanks to the Santa Maria Valley Railway Historical Museum! You'll start to see also that each student in the active "railroading" group will be wearing a bandana somewhere (the boy at far left has his in his pants pocket, the girl at right has hers around her neck). Dangling from the top of the picture are markers on the timeline that runs along the top of the wall all the way around the classroom. At the end of each colored strip of paper is a drawing and/or words that describe the date and event. The middle one (of the three shown) marks September 11, 1955 when a time capsule was buried in front of the Santa Maria City Hall. It will be opened after being in the ground for 50 years on September 11, 2005. This week's railroad vocabulary words [Word97 version, all words, 28Kb] are on the cream-colored cards in the red pocket chart at right behind Mr. Bill.Previous  Next[Home] [Synopsis] [Train Layout (HO)] [Schedule: 2002, 2003] [For Teachers] [What's New] [Site Overview] |
