We’d like to share some of our brilliant building with you this week. Every week we explore, investigate and construct using a variety of resources and materials. Constructive play helps to extend our ideas and imaginations and helps us to use, and develop, lots of skills such as: planning, drawing, cutting, assembling, moulding, stacking and testing!

Before we build we often use paper and pens to plan our creations. This week we included propellers, masts and portholes in our plans and used photos of familiar boats to help us notice detail. Discussing our drawings and what we see in pictures is a great way for us to develop talking and listening skills and extends our vocabulary.

 

We used the big blocks and woodwork bench to build piers, harbours, mazes, mouse homes, cruise ships and lifeboats and worked together to stack single unit blocks and large blocks to cover a window. By working together in pairs and small groups we learn to listen, take turns and co-operate with each other. Actions such as passing each other the correct pieces and listening to each others ideas allows us to engage with each other and to contribute towards a shared goal. Through building we also use many parts of our bodies as we crawl, stretch and pull large blocks which develops our muscles for sitting and writing.

Outdoors we built roads, ramps, sand castles and boats. We had to use a lot of problem solving skills as the weather affected our building materials. The wind blew masts over and the rain made building areas squashy. As we built we learned to adapt our approaches, take advice, test ideas and reassess our options. Using smaller bits of wood helped develop our fine motor skills and precision.

 

This week some of us used connecting blocks to build cranes. Some cranes became very very tall!! As we built we began to use vocabulary linked to spatial reasoning such as below, on top, next to, besides and above. We measured our cranes and spoke about how big and long they were.

We tried to build a crane outside but quickly became much more interested in how the wind affected the string. The crane developed into a wind sock instead! We found tarpaulin in the shed and asked for help to build a “bairn shelter”. When experimenting with different materials and discovering new uses for these the possibilities for building and for developing creativity become endless.

We hope you’ve enjoyed a peek at some of our constructive play this week and look forward to sharing more learning with you next week.