Tag Archives: construction

Stacking and Enclosure play in the blocks

In the block area, the children have been exploring which stage of block play they are at. Through observation it was noticed that the children were doing a lot of stacking and enclosure play in the block area.

Stacking allows children to develop their fine motor skills and core strength as they stack the blocks higher. Enclosure play in the block area is when the children use blocks to create closed off spaces, demonstrating a concept of inside and outside.

The children decided that they wanted to build houses with the blocks so we added in some wooden people characters which sparked discussions about who lived in our houses.

”That’s my mummy, me, my big brother and my baby brother”

The children used different shapes and sizes of blocks and props to create their own houses, and used the wooden figures to role play real life situations.

”I’m building the walls for the house”

”My baby one is going to bed, this is the mummy one”

The children will be working on expanding their learning in the block area over the next few weeks creating different enclosures and some children have suggested adding in some farm animals, I wonder what they will create next?

 

Article 28: I have the right to an education

 

Amazing Architecture in Cart Mill City

Over the last few weeks, we have spent lots of time in our construction and block play area. We are so lucky to have a large selection of block play and construction materials to choose from here at Cart Mill. This gives us the opportunity to explore our creativity through designing and building our own models.

Using one of our house plans as a guide, we chose various sizes of wooden blocks to recreate our own houses! Using our knowledge of shapes, positional language and by working together, we created a living room, dining room, kitchen and bedroom!  By adding loose parts, we were able to add some extra special features!

“There’s a kitchen. This is the living room. We’re going to make a dining room”.
“The kitchen is next to the living room.  The bathroom is behind the kitchen.”
“It’s got 2 toilets”.
“These are the statues. My mummy has statues in the bathroom”.
“It has a chimney. Steam comes out of it and the bad guys can’t come in!”  “This is my bedroom.  I’m putting a cushion in to lie on”.

Using smaller blocks gives us the opportunity to develop both our fine motor and problem solving skills by discovering how to connect the blocks together to build our models.

We all love playing with our stickle bricks and Lego.  Sometimes it can be really tricky to fit the blocks together. With a bit of patience, perseverance and using our fantastic imaginations, we have created some fantastic models!

“It’s a birthday cake with candles on it”.
”It’s a T”.

“I made a play park.  It has a climbing frame, a slide and a swimming pool”.

Working together and sharing our ideas, we were able to create our very own Cart Mill Lego city! Isn’t it fabulous! We think we would have lots of fun living there!  Can you recognise the special people who live there?

“The swimming pool looks like so much fun. It has a bit to jump off into the water and you go up the stairs and through the door to get to the slide.  It’s got a cafe if we are hungry!”.

To challenge ourselves further, we decided to take our block building  outside! It was so much fun! Working together, we placed the blocks carefully in front and behind each other to create a path all round the Cart  Mill garden! It was sooooo big and meant we were able to walk all round the garden without our feet touching the ground (the floor is lava after all!).