Bubble gum party

Bubble gum party. Sounds fun, right? Today there were three girls all dressed up for a bubble gum party; they were inviting others to join in the fun. I was one of the lucky ones invited, so I joined the fun. There was a very specific order of events that needed to happen. They described them to me in this way:
1. Sign in to the party (on the white board in the house area)
2. Eat some food (which was graciously prepared by one of the hosts)
3. Have a sleep over (which lasted really long and involved snoring....)
4. Go buy some things at the store.... but this actually didn't happen because the play suddenly changed to going on a train ride (#5).... 

In the midst of this wonderfully orchestrated play were multiple ideas/suggestions/opinions. Who gets to decide what happens next? How do you mediate this play when everyone has an idea and how they think it should go? Well, it worked out okay. We decided that whomever was driving the train got to make the decisions. And there you have it! I wish that I could have gotten a picture of the events 1-4, but I was too involved to go grab the camera, but did capture event #5.

Here we are on the Polar Express that left
at night. We barely made it in time, but the
conductor waited until everyone was aboard.
We were a bit cramped, but we all fit on the train.
And somebody brought snacks. Yes!

Oh no! The engine stopped working during our trip.
Thankfully, we had a handy man
on board (guy in the yellow shirt)
that fixed the problem with his trusty tools!

What an experience. To anyone observing this, it may appear a little chaotic, but it actually went quite smoothly even with differing opinions and ideas. The spontaneity, team work and creativity was great to observe and be a part of.

If you're a preschool teacher, you have to learn to play along with whatever happens. It's always an interesting journey - it never turns out quite how you expect....

So much for a bubble gum party.....