Construction & community workers

CONSTRUCTION & COMMUNITY WORKERS

Imaginative: Community Workers, vehicles, Cardboard city

Ideas: Draw a city on a large piece of paper, cardboard

box, use painter’s tape to tape a road, paper towel

tubes for parking garage, make signs to say what

the building is. Follow your child’s lead. When the

idea comes from the child, they typically stick to

the activity longer with some help from the adults.

Maybe you prefer to draw a countryside, a farm,

A zoo, a jungle, a beach

Extend: Who would work in this building (hospital), garage,

mall, restaurant, post office, construction site

What tools might they use?

Who else might you find?

Art: Creating with shapes, sticks, glue, scissors

colored paper, stickers

Ideas: Talk about the material used, how will you put it

together?

“Tell me about…your picture, the colors you chose,

your creation”

Tell me about… is more open ended than “what is that?”

Your child can tell you more about their creation, it does not need to be a specific anything. They are learning through doing

This is about process not product

Sensory: Pour in a bag of rice into a container (plastic

container, cake pan, shoe box) add some

construction vehicles, tubes (from paper towel

or foil wrap, sticks, rocks and/or a few pine cones

Ideas: Follow your child’s lead. How will they choose to

play in it? Hide and Seek an item and find it.

Extend: What could you use at home to make a sensory bin?

If you could build a road to anywhere in the world,

where would that be?

Awareness of Self: Mystery Bag of community worker

tools

Ideas: Put your hand in the bag without peeking, feel an item

and try to name them or say how you use them.

Encourage your child to describe the item-is it soft

bumpy, rough, smooth, squishy, wooden, fuzzy?

Extend: How did you know it was a ….?, What would you use

the tools for? Can you name some other tools?

Gross Motor: Ladder Fun made with sticks on the driveway

or tape or sting on the floor

Ideas: Think of different ways to walk, hop, stomp on,

between, in front of, beside, outside rails

jump over the lines

Extend: How far can you stretch touching one rung

with your hands, the other with your feet?

Ladder fun

• Hop on each rung

• Hop between each rung

• Walk on sides of ladder

• Walk sideways between the rungs

Cognitive: Which item does not belong?

Ideas: Take contents out of bag, talk about which one

does not belong with others and why

(carrot, broccoli, tomato and bike –the bike because

it’s not a vegetable)

Extend: What else would belong with….?

Imaginative: Construction Play-take out some child friendly

tools, some hats, safety goggles (old pair of

sunglasses with lenses removed), ribbon for Caution

Tape, old phone or walkie talkie, clipboard and paper.

Ideas: Encourage children to use their imagination.

How could you pretend to be a ……?, what would you

use to build a….?

Extend: What materials would you need for a …..?, what if

you didn’t have any….?

Art: Paint—stamps, brick (sponge), paint brush, truck track

be creative with the materials available.

Ideas: What else could you use to make prints?

Talk about the material used, how will you put it

together?

This is about process not product

“Tell me about…your picture, the colors you chose,

Your creation”

Fine Motor: Clay brick (or playdough), golf tees, hammer

Ideas: Hammer in the “nails” (golf tees) to the clay.

Can you make different size bricks?

Extend: How can you remove the “nails”? What other

Materials would you use a hammer and nails with?

Sensory: Playdough mud with tools, community workers and

tubes, vehicles

Ideas: Explore how the vehicles move thru the mud. Talk

about people you have seen at construction sites.

Extend: What else can this be used for? How could you

make a sensory bin at home?

Muddy Play-Dough

• 2 Cups of Flour

• 1/2 Cup of Coffee Grounds (or cocoa powder)

• 1 Tablespoon of Instant Coffee (This will make the colour darker- Dissolve in hot water)

• 1 Cup of Salt

• 2 Teaspoons of Cream of Tartar (she called for more, but this stuff is hard to find, so I cut the amount by a third).

• 1 Cup of very hot water

• 2 Tablespoons of oil

• A few drops of Glycerin (or a piece of a soap bar, shaved)

Mix the dry ingredients. Add the wet, stir lots. Let it sit for a while to thicken, then stir again. If needed, add more flour to thicken to the right texture.

Store in an air tight container in fridge

Gross Motor: Soccer

Playing inside-for a “net” use a box, basket,

paper shopping bag as the net, any soft ball or

rolled up socks

Ideas: Kick the ball in the box. Use the inside of your foot,

the outside of your foot, your toe. Start off close

to the “net” then gradually move farther away.

Extend: Basketball-use box, basket or paper bag. Toss the

ball in the box. Use your left hand, right

hand, two hands, throw underhand, throw overhand

How else could you play this?

What other ideas do you have