We have had a busy fall of preschool! Z has been loving anything he can build, shape, and/or destroy. So it made sense to make our first unit for the year focused on Construction.

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I will be sharing in two blog posts about the fun we have been having doing preschool activities with our construction theme.

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Our first week we stared out with the a story: The three little pigs. We did a sensory bin full of hay, sticks, and pretend bricks (Jenga blocks) as well as hidden among these were a few toy pigs and a wolf.

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After watching different renditions of the story in educational television shows, we made three little pigs out of pink erasers, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners. We first made the homes for the pigs then pretended to be the wolf and tried to blow down the different houses.

We had a snack of pretzel sticks with peanut butter as a pig stick house.

We learned about the number 3 for three pigs and did sequenced activities to show the three houses and three pics using our thumbs as the pigs and again the eraser to show bricks. We used sticks outside to make the letter P and to try to make a shelter for our pretend pigs.

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The next day we played pick up sticks and use the sticks and other building materials to once again try to make homes for the pigs and knock them down. With all of this we were learning building materials and what makes a good wind resistant structure.

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Our second week we focused on the parable of the wise man building his house on the rock. For our sensory bin we played with rocks with water and different measuring containers.

We watched and read several different versions of the parable where the wise man built his house on the rock and foolish one on the sand as well as time-elapsed versions of houses being built. We talked about how important it is in house building and in life to have a solid foundation hat can face any storm.

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We made two houses out of cups and construction paper. Then we did an experiment where we put sand in two containers-one house went on a rock the other on the sand. We used Z’s bath tools including a sifter that has holes in it to make it act like it was raining. This way Z saw how the house on the rock stayed steady.

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We did another art project where Z used his building blocks as stamps to re-create the story of both houses on the rock and sand. We hit these pictures with a spray bottle with tinted water in it to act like rain.

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Z loved our snack-graham cracker sand and house put together with peanut butter. He was able to smash it after we sang the parable song-then we ate it of course!

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We learned about the letter H for house and the number 2 for the two houses, working on the concept of before and after. Z also enjoyed learning how to use building bricks to create patterns.

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Our third week we went away from the story theme and learned about tools. For our introductory bin I pulled out his toy tool box and tool bench. We also gave him a container with real nuts bolts and large screws to work on his fine motor skills .

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We enjoyed using our tape measure to measure items around the house learning about width and length. We did several toolbox worksheets that taught counting, patterns, per-writing, and names and uses of tools.

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Z had fun hammering golf tees into an egg carton to create/match a pattern/code. He also enjoyed hammering golf tees into a cardboard tray to show the correct number or letter. This week we learned about the letter T for tool and the number 5.

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Z also had fun doing process art where we dipped some of dad’s real grown up tools into paint and saw what patterns and designs we could make on paper.

Those are the highlights of our first three weeks of preschool this fall. The next three weeks of our construction unit coming soon!