- pictures of various bridges
- bridge
- strong
MA Standards:
English Language Arts/Speaking and Listening/SL.PK.MA.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners during daily routines and play.
English Language Arts/Language/L.PK.MA.6 Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, listening to books read aloud, activities, and play.
Head Start Outcomes:
Language Development/Receptive Language Attends to language during conversations, songs, stories, or other learning experiences.
Language Development/Expressive Language Uses language to express ideas and needs.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Language 2 Participate actively in discussions, listen to the ideas of others, and ask and answer relevant questions.
Talk Together: Bridges
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
STEM Key Concepts: How you design and build a structure helps determine how strong it will be; Different materials are useful for making different structures and different parts of structures; Walls, roofs, and bridges need to be supported in special ways
ELA Focus Skills: Listening and Speaking, Vocabulary
Introduce bridges to children. Display the pictures of bridges. Hold up or point to one of the pictures and ask, Does anyone know what this is? Have you ever seen or been on a bridge? Then ask, Why do people build bridges? Talk with children about how bridges are built to help people and vehicles move from one place to another, usually over water. Prompt children to talk about what materials they think were used to make the bridge (aluminum, wood, etc.) and what shapes they see in the bridge (triangle, slanted lines, etc.). Then say, Have you ever wondered what keeps bridges from falling down? What do you think it is about this bridge that makes it strong? Where are its supports? Talk about why it is important that bridges are strong.