When I taught preschool one of the most exciting themes for my students was our Construction & Buildings unit of study from Creative Curriculum. They just loved playing with blocks, pretending they were construction workers and using the toy tools.
Construction & Buildings unit
I’m sharing pictures from my archives of some of the activities my students liked the most. I love watching them play, use their imagination, explore and discover new things during this unit. Check out these activities for your Construction & Buildings unit theme.
Blocks
Blocks were pretty easy to introduce during this unit. We had cardboard blocks and wooden blocks. I put pictures of different buildings in the Blocks Area for the students to references to as they were building if they wanted inspiration.
Blueprints
I introduced my students to blueprints at the beginning of the unit. We discussed how when a construction worker wants to build something first they have to draw a plan. I modeled how to use the white crayons or white colored pencils to draw their building design on the blueprint.
Buildings in the Neighborhood
I always want to try and make what we’re learning relatable to the students. So we made a list of buildings that we’ve seen in our community. I printed out pictures of buildings that I thought they would name and had them ready when we were making the list. The students really liked “reading” the list of buildings, having the real images helped.
Books
There are so many books that can accompany this unit. My students enjoyed The Three Little Pigs book the most. Most of these books are non-fiction, there are sever fiction books but I think the students enjoyed looking at the non-fiction books with the real images the most.
Click here to find out what books we used for this unit!
Numbers
The numbers I found were perfect for this unit, since they looked like streets, I decided to print them out and glue them to orange and yellow paper. I also used a hole puncher to punch out the corresponding number of holes. I hung up the numbers by the door so we can practice counting on our way out each day.
Construction Crafts
There were so many crafts to choose from for this unit, the children are so creative and I love giving them supplies and just watching what they create. The first craft we did paper bag houses. I placed cut out shapes on the table and the children glued them on the paper bag. Then they used markers to decorate their houses. We stuffed the bag with scrap paper, stapled the bag closed and then glued the roof on. Aren’t they cute?
The children also designed their own construction hats. I printed templates on cardstock, the children cut them out and decorated them using a variety of supplies from the Art area.
The next crafts were by far my students favorites, marshmallow igloos! You can make these several different ways, we used paper bowls and cups, but you can you milk cartons too. I cut out the entrance to the igloos, put all the materials on the table and let the kids create! The kids had fun snacking on the marshmallows as they worked, once they were done I placed them on the radiator to dry.
We also made shape houses, this time 2-dimensional. I cut shapes from different colors of construction paper and put them on the paper. We discussed with the children that they were to design a building. Everyone wanted to make their house, lol.
Here are some additional shape crafts! I like to just put everything out and let the kids use their imagination and create!
At our easel center the students also painted objects related to construction and buildings. I taped pictures of buildings on the easel to provide the students with inspiration when painting.
Patterning
Patterning is a skill that we teach in preschool, we start with simple AB patterns, the copy the pattern, next extend the pattern and then when they are ready they create their own patterns (AB, AABB, ABC). For this activity I printed pictures and placed them on the table with the other materials. The children picked two or three pictures based on their ability level and created their on patterns then glued them onto a sentence strip.
Stem
In our Science center I put a stem activity that require the students to build a bridge. They used mini “red solo cups” and popsicle sticks, I also put farm animals and a river made from paper in the center as well. I had so much fun observing the students experiment with different ideas and discover new ways to manipulative the materials.
I hope you found some of these activities from our Construction & Buildings unit useful! I know these are a lot of ideas but just try one at a time! Let me know which one you try and how it works in your classroom!
Click here to find out what books we used for this unit!
Click here to check out some of out other unit themes!
