"It's a castle tower for people!"

Cooperative building with a variety of classroom materials

The children have been building many structures everyday, since the first day of school. We have been talking a lot about how we respect ideas and what other children build.  With teacher guidance we have been talking about how we can add on to the structures and share our ideas for building. One of the purposes for this long term investigation is to help the children revisit their work over the course of many days.  The children have been asking to save the projects they have invested a lot of time in and work they are proud of.  Along with wanting to save these structures they have been writing their own "save" signs, which is promoting their interest in writing.

 

On Tuesday this week the children began by using two different types of blocks. They first built with the foam blocks and created a basic structure. Jamil and Jenna then began to add the wooden blocks as a road around the tower.

After the children built the road, the stopped to think about what else their structure needed. "We need a pool for the people."  The children built a pool/moat around the outside of the structure near the road.  They even added a diving board.

The children gradually added more materials to the tower, such as seashells, dominoes and light table jewels. Elissa also talked about adding people and animals to the structure.  "We need to put me in the pool!"  "Yeah and I can go on the tower."

This was the final structure the children built. 

We will be continuing to build throughout the semester using a variety of materials. The children have been especially interested in building a hotel out of the legos, which has been saved for a few days now. Come in and see it in the block area or look at the pictures on snapfish.