- Building a House (book)
- cardboard
- construction tape
- craft sticks
- glue or tape
- hard hats
- markers
- paper
- plastic people
- scissors
- shovels
- toy dump trucks and other machines
- build
- dig
- family
- house
- move
- next to
- people
- push
- worker
MA Standards:
English Language Arts/Language/L.PK.MA.6 Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, listening to books read aloud, activities, and play. English Language Arts/Speaking and Listening/SL.PK.MA.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners during daily routines and play.
Head Start Outcomes:
Approaches to Learning/Initiative and Curiosity Demonstrates flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness in approaching tasks and activities.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Composition 16 Use their own words or illustrations to describe their experiences, tell imaginative stories, or communicate information about a topic of interest.
Build a House
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care. All rights reserved.
Skill Focus: Imaginative Play, Storytelling, Vocabulary
Provide children with toy dump trucks and bulldozers so they can excavate in the sand in order to build a house. Help children glue or tape cardboard to form a house and a roof, and draw or cut-and-paste rectangles for windows and a door. Let them bring the plastic people to move into their new home.
Challenge children to make up a story about the construction process or the family moving into their new home.
Adaptation: Family-based childcare educators and smaller group-based centers can adapt this activity by using sand or beans poured into a cake pan or baking dish. Use more than one pan if multiple children are doing an activity. Children can also do this activity outside in a sand box.