Cityscapes & Skyscrapers

Activity Overview

This building challenge will work fine and gross motor muscles, and we will also build in an element of planning and engineering in this project. The guided prompt allows an avenue for creativity, and provides an opportunity for students to reflect on their own surroundings, and on what a city means to them.

What You Need

• Good Morning City read aloud and Cityscapes slideshow.

• Building materials - Blocks, MagnaTiles, or Legos are great for this activity.

• Crayons, colored pencils, or markers

• Paper

Steps

1. Talk about what kind of skyscrapers or city you want to build. Find images of skyscrapers and cityscapes online to inspire creation. Consider using this Good Morning City read aloud as an entry point.

2. Draw a picture to guide your work. Be sure to include specific details that can be replicated with your building materials.

3. Build!

Guiding Questions

• Where is your city?

• What language do they speak?

• How do people in your city get around? Bike, car, subway…..rickshaw?

• How tall is your building?

• What is your building used for?

• Who works and plays in your building?

Extensions

• Replication - can you build the Empire State Building? Tokyo Tower? The Eiffel Tower? The Taj Majal? Utilize this slideshow of inspiring images to expose your student to world architecture and challenge them in their structure-building.

• Spread this out over multiple days - how big or intricate can your creation become?

• Go on a neighborhood or city walk, take pictures of inspiring buildings and find a way to add them to our block cityscape.