Website Archive - April, 2006

Spotlight on Construction

This month, our spotlight is on Construction or building and includes websites which offer activities for parents, teachers, and children. As children explore building materials, such as blocks and Lego’s, they begin to notice the differences between shapes and to experiment with the angles and symmetry needed to build houses, towers and even cars and trucks. They recognize patterns and balance and begin to place mathematical values on units and groupings. Geometric patterns and other mathematical basics are being learned along with science, art, planning, teamwork, and so much more in what may have once been considered just ”playing” with blocks. Check out this month's "previews” and links to find other related “building blocks.

Check out this month's "previews” and links.

Children

There are many phases to building. In this activity, Build a Tree House with Burdette. Burdette (a bird, of course) ask for help in designing a tree house. There are no hammers and nails but children get to select and see how their choices of windows, doors, floor, roof, and furniture look when they are all in place. They can even choose colors for each item. And, if the final Tree House is not the look they want, they can easily change one or all selections.

Download the Freeware Lego Digital Designer 1.4 and watch your young students design their neighborhood in Lego’s. This freeware software offers all sizes and colors of Lego’s plus windows and doors. It’s a safe download so go ahead and download it to your computer and open a new world of digital building. It is a long download so plan ahead and do this when you can spare the time and be sure to download from the Staff desktop.

Visit Bob the Builder and watch as he builds a new town in Sunflower Valley. What role does each of his friends play? How do they work together to create the new town? Ready to participate? Help Muck pick up items for his Recycling Center or help Roley build a Road or help Benn build a Tower - all by manipulating Lego’s at: http://www.bobthebuilder.com/usa/lego.html.

Parents

Interactive Fun Puzzles for Kids has puzzles for all ages but the first five are preschool level and are a great activity for parents and child to do together. Counting Fishes, Mixed Up Puzzles, Slider puzzles, Sorting Puzzles, and Origami Animals each offer a math-based activity which will help develop discriminatory and spatial skills.

Your Child's Geometric World. Geometry at three? You bet! by Douglas H. Clements This article points out exactly what preschoolers are learning as they play with blocks. Parents will be surprised at what their child knows and is learning and how this learning is occurring. This article also offers suggestions for how parents can support the learning experience at home.

Directions for Make Your Own Shape Puzzles. This site offers an activity for making puzzle pieces that children can learn to manipulate to make fit into the original picture. Also teaches recognition of shapes and designs, classification, and sorting which are basic math skills used in building and design.

Teachers

Scroll down to Blocks: Create a Neighborhood Map for a lesson which begins with children exploring their neighborhood. Then continue the lesson indoors as they use creative thinking, problem solving and spatial awareness skills to map their neighborhood and recreate it out of table blocks and paper.

This site offers sample chapters from several books by Ingrid Chalufour, Karen Worth, Education Development Center, Inc. A sample chapter of Building Structures with Young Children is a free download and a great foundation for introducing building in your classroom. It clearly outlines the skills developed through construction activities such as block building. This is a safe download.

Geometry Workshop introduces young children to geometric shapes by letting them draw or stamp the shapes or answer questions about the shapes. The free version does have ads but if you can ignore them the program is comprehensive, including shapes and measuring with a ruler and protractor. No need to register to play.

 

[Posted on April 12, 2006]