Under Construction-3 Day Class

This week and next week we are "Under Construction!"  Our centers have been filled with many opportunities for our students to construct, build, create, share, and pretend!  It has been fun to build with different types of materials in our classroom.  As our week began, we brainstormed what construction workers build and named some construction trucks. We discussed and showed pictures of real construction trucks.  The hippos shared their knowledge of what they already knew about these trucks and their purpose.  The next day we asked the hippos what tools carpenters and builders use to construct.   All of us talked about what these tools were used for and how they work. Ms. Ginny brought in her drill and drilled a few. holes into a wooden block. In addition, we learned that architects make blueprints before a house or building can be built. (goals:contributing as a member of a group, answering questions, respectful behaviors, listening skills)

Our dramatic play area was turned into a hardware store and construction zone. The students enjoyed shopping and restocking the shelves.  Our sensory table was filled with little pebbles, scoopers and construction trucks.  Other activities included cutting orange fencing and caution tape, measuring different tape length with blocks and counting them, cutting paint swatches and gluing them on a house, playing with construction trucks on the floor, using rulers to draw plans, rolling a dice and placing that many blocks to make a building, doing construction yoga, sorting and weighing bolts, using trucks, pebbles and blocks with playdough, lacing trucks, hammering different colored tees in an egg carton that followed a pattern and much more. In addition, we made buildings with paint and legos. We then named our city and drew pictures in our city. Wednesday, we signed in to what our favorite construction truck was. During our journal we dictated what we would build. (goals: fine and gross motor, counting, participating as a member of a group, taking turns, using language, comparing, sequencing, making predictions, making representational pictures)

The hippos enjoyed watching a video about different types of bridges. During center time we were able to explore by making our own bridges and discovering which materials make a strong bridge and which materials make a weak bridge. We placed plastic bears on the bridges to test the strength of the bridge.

Books We Read
Three Cheers For Kid McGeer
Building A House

Dig, Dig, Dogs Dig

Alphabet Construction

Video-What Makes Bridges So Strong?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVOnRPefcno

Questions to Ask
1. What items were sold at the Hippo Hardware store?
2. What would you like to build?
3. All the construction trucks work together. What does teamwork mean?
4. What is your favorite constructions truck?
5. What did you enjoy building with at school? (blocks, legos, pipes, bridges, magnatiles)

Reminders

***Send in a shoe box by Tuesday, February the 4th for our valentines.

***Send Valentines in by Tuesday, February 11th to school. Please sign your child's name on each card.  Please do NOT write who it is going to.  This will help tremendously when passing out the cards to others. Also, please do not send food with your valentine cards.

2/13 Friendship Party-Thursday at 11:00 All are invited

Next Week
More Construction!!

What to practice at home
Build with different objects such as blocks, boxes, legos, anything you can think of.  As your child what he/she has built. 

Happy Birthday, Estella!

Lacing construction trucks.

We cut paint swatches then glued them to the house.

It was fun constructing with little legos....

and Lincoln Logs too!

We pretended to be different construction trucks during gym.

We used different colored golf tees and
hammered them into a egg carton to follow the pattern.

Cement mixer

Art fun!

After reading Alphabet Construction,
we constructed the letters.

It was fun to make bead bracelets.

We brainstormed trucks, tools and what builders build.

We played with blocks, screws, rocks and
construction trucks in playdoh.

After watching our video on bridges, we experimented 
making our own bridges with a variety of materials and bears.

Show and Tell

Show and Tell

I used a real drill to make a few holes in the block.

.

We had fun with these as well.

It was fun to build with real PVC pipes.

We measured the tape lengths using unifix cubes.
Then we counted them and compared them.

We sorted and weighed real bolts, washers and screws.

We finally got to go outside!!

Playing the drums in music class.

Our arch turned into a construction site.

After making a city by painting with legos, we added
people and scenery. 

We used one side of the lego for the outline of the building
and the other side for the windows. We then named our city
and drew in scenery.

Show and Tell