Multi-Day Building Challenge

Activity Overview

This challenge allows children to take the three-dimensional building experiences they have been engaging in and apply them to a multi-step, multiple day construction provocation. This allows children to practice planning strategies and to dive deeper into their block work, shifting and changing things as they decide.

What You Need

• Building Materials: Use any materials that you want. Mix and match materials through the building process to add more challenge or to open up the children's thinking.

Steps

1. Day 1: Construct a being. Will it be a person, an animal, an insect, a robot, a superhero?

2. Day 2: Construct a home. What materials is it made out of? How big is it? How many floors does it have?

3. Day 3: Construct an environment. Where does this being live? The forest, the city, the country, in the mountains? Do they have neighbors?

Guiding Questions

• What would your being need to eat? Where would they sleep?

• What is the weather like where it is? How can we build our home to keep weather out?

• Who else lives in the world?

• Where do they get their food?

• Do the other beings have houses?

Extensions

• Your student can take this project as far as they want. They can build multiple beings, such as a family or a team of superheroes. They can build a whole city or a huge forest – the sky’s the limit….or not….build beyond the sky into outer space!

• The more open-ended questions you ask, the more challenge the child is presented with to organize their thoughts and ideas, and share them back to you through discussion about the artifact they are building.

• Reflect on their experience by writing or drawing about it, or record a short video of your student describing their creation.