Building It

Materials

books or picture of construction sites
hardhats
video of a live construction site (one you took or one from the Internet)

English Language Arts/Speaking and Listening/SL.PK.MA.2 Recall information for short periods of time and retell, act out, or represent information from a text read aloud, a recording, or a video (e.g., watch a video about birds and their habitats and make drawings or constructions of birds and their nests).

Head Start Outcomes:

Social Emotional Development/Self-Regulation Follows simple rules, routines, and directions.
Language Development/Receptive Language Attends to language during conversations, songs, stories, or other learning experiences.

PreK Learning Guidelines:

English Language Arts/Language 2 Participate actively in discussions, listen to the ideas of others, and ask and answer relevant questions.

Building It

Skill Focus: Active Listening, Active Viewing, Vocabulary

Educator Prep: Find a construction site in your neighborhood and video record the workers carrying out various tasks (or find a site online.) Include safety precautions taken (hard hats, goggles, construction tape, etc.). Also include machines, workers, policemen, etc.

Put a “Construction Site” sign at the top of the computer. Have children put on their hardhats before they enter the “construction site.” Tell children they will be viewing an actual construction site where a <name of structure> is being built. Encourage children to actively view and discuss the construction site video with a partner.

Have children act out some of the building tasks that people in the video are doing that children have been observing in their own explorations.
Tell children to make some of the sounds the trucks and the tools make.
Encourage children to ask questions about what they wonder is happening as the structure is being built.

Be available to answer questions and point out things that would interest children.

Building It

Materials

Vocabulary

Standards

Building It