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Massive construction trucks, temporary road closures, swirling dirt clouds, resonating machine groans, annoying sidewalk detours, waves of cyclone fencing, and buildings and grounds email alerts: our bond money at work! Amidst the frustrations of on-going construction, a classroom of preschoolers from the Mary Meta Lazarus Child Development Center, College of San Mateo took advantage of the construction of our new 55,620 square foot Science Building and began a two month construction project of their own.
Children Discover Construction Site
The collaborative project started when a group of four and five year old children discovered the construction site while on a campus nature walk. The group expressed an interest in returning to the site for a weekly update. The teachers at the Child Development Center built on the children's interest that involved everyone in advance planning and in a variety of activities that required several months of sustained effort. The children were openly encouraged to participate in their own learning and to interact with all the people related to the construction zone, the construction materials and the campus environment. This meaningful project work goes beyond a canned curriculum and refers to a way of teaching and learning as well as to the content of what is taught and learned in our early care and education field.
After several weeks of visiting the construction site and recording their observations of the Science Building’s progress through representational drawings, the children made contact with the construction workers, our resident experts. The workers from McCarthy Building Company took the time to explain the uses and variety of tools with the children. Hammers, nails, saws, hard hats, tool belts and a stepladder were introduced into the construction zone that was created within the classroom environment. The children were encouraged to explore the principles of gravity, tension, and compression as well as design, stability and balance while they built towers out of the provided materials. The children throughout the day opened the toolboxes, put on their hard hats, chose the appropriate tools for their individual projects, constructed replicas of tall buildings, climbed the stepladder to increase the height of their projects and measured their progress with tape measures.
Learning First Hand
Weekly trips to the actual construction site continued and an on-going working relationship was established with several McCarthy construction workers. The children learned first hand about levels and other instruments that ensure straight lines. The children noted that the cross beams were being welded to the building and their weekly log of two-dimensional drawings now reflected cross beams and stairwells as well as incorporating other characteristics of the structure. Back in the classroom, different types of tape measures, rulers, and levels were added to the internal construction zone.
The children explored the characteristics of building materials and objects with the introduction of maple wood, redwood, and different size nails. The children continued to construct their individual projects using glue, nails, and scraps of wood. There were frequent discussions as to balance and stability as the children tried to improve upon previous structures with similar materials or tried a variety of designs with new materials. They explored the patterns and relationships among the building experiences and connected observations and data from on-going explorations of the building materials and experiences. The children increased their building and structures vocabulary and the ability to communicate their observations and ideas by contributing more detailed descriptions of building structures.
A Joint Project
This extended project work culminated when the preschoolers invited the McCarthy workers to visit the Child Development Center and engage in a joint project. Plans were drawn up to build a wooden arbor to frame our “Crossing the Bridge” graduation ceremony for our kindergarten bound students. Together, the children and construction workers measured, sawed, drilled and hammered redwood boards to create the arbor. It was an incredible experience for everyone involved and it took an amazing commitment on the part of the McCarthy people to want to make a difference in our youngest students on campus. McCarthy supplied the core group of preschool researchers with McCarthy tee shirts and hard hats. The children wanted to acknowledge their thankfulness with snacks for everyone at the construction site! When they found out how many workers were employed on site, they decided that they couldn't afford the snacks and instead made a graphic sign showing all the healthy foods, including carrots, which they wanted to give to the workers. This is what community building is all about!
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