In the first
semester, the children demonstrated interest in building. They built with materials of all sizes and
shapes, including wooden blocks, mirror blocks, cubes, Legos, Magnatiles and
natural materials. We were glad to see
the children had discovered the many building materials in our classroom. We
could tell they were intrigued by the materials, so we thought that we would
like to focus on the process of building with the children for the second
semester.
We began by
just offering a simple exploration of wood blocks. We placed a selection of different size wood
blocks at a table in the art area. We
decided to move the blocks from the floor in the block area to a table because
the space is so large and there are so many other materials around that could
distract the children from the blocks.
We noticed
the children began their explorations with stacking the blocks. The blocks were of various sizes and
shapes. We heard words like “tower,” “tall,”
“fell down” and “triangle.” The children
became enthusiastic when they could knock down the structures they had built.
We heard a lot of children exclaim, “Uh Oh!”
Next, we
thought we would give the children inspiration for their stacking by providing
them with pictures of famous structures from around the world. They looked at black and white photographs of
the Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, Renaissance Center, Sears Tower and
the Great Wall of China. The children
were intrigued by the photographs and we encouraged them to build what they saw
in the photographs.
