Busy Builders

The toddler room has been busy building with many different mediums. This study began when teachers noticed that children were very engaged in building with every material they used. They did this individually and in small groups.

One afternoon children work cooperatively to construct a fort out of the large fabric in the classroom, afterword's they enjoyed sitting together inside the fort admiring what they had done.

After the fort building teacher set up opportunities for individual children to build with different mediums, both large and small scale. During this time children built many tall, short, small, and large structures.

Teachers  noticed children building outside as well. During this time children worked cooperatively to build towers with large Legos. When  building outside teachers observed children being interested in how to build together but more interested in building concepts with one another especially the concept of shadow.  After this observation teachers decided to work with children in small groups in the studio to build structures and create shadows. During this time children engaged in different ways; for some it was about the act of building and putting objects inside one another, understanding how large blocks need to be on the bottom and small block on to top.  

Teachers followed the natural progression of children‘s play. During this time teachers set up play opportunities that were inquiry based and an opportunity to express knowledge through creativity  expression and open ended materials.

This study of Building engaged children in all NM Early Learning Domains: Beginning to Know About Ourselves and Other, Beginning to Communicate, Beginning to Move and Do, Beginning to Build Concepts and Approaches to Learning.