Our building unit study was a specific request from our then-five-year-old. I had no idea how we would do a whole unit study on it, but once I started planning and we started learning, I found it was one of my favorites (and theirs) all year. This unit study was completed when our kids were 5, 3, and 1.
Week 1: Construction Trucks
Each morning, we started the day with half of a Stinky and Dirty episode on Amazon prime. In each episode of the show, Stinky and Dirty (a garbage truck and a backhoe loader) solve problems using random materials and ideas they have. After each episode, I gave the kids a challenge to complete that went along with the problem Stinky and Dirty had worked to solve. We took a field trip to watch a construction site, and tallied the types of construction trucks that we saw there, and made a book with the numbers.
We read a bit of Jerry Palotta’s Construction Alphabet Book each day. I also was excited to add the original Stinky and Dirty books “I Stink” and “I’m Dirty” to our library. Later in the week, we got a brand new sand box, which we filled with rocks, blocks, and construction trucks. I can report that after several months, the plain wooden blocks didn’t hold up, but I think the painted ones would be ok to leave long term! We brought those inside for now. Our movie for the week was The Lego Movie and our snack was graham crackers, apple jacks, and peanut butter to build with and eat.
Week 2: Architecture & Ancient Buildings
The book Someone Builds the Dream helped us discuss that it takes many different people to make a building. We looked at pictures of well-known buildings in books and tried to replicated those with blocks. We drew our own building “blueprints” and tried to replicate our drawings. Finally, we learned about some famous ancient buildings and found the countries where they were on our world map. Our movie for the week was Hercules (since we looked at Ancient Greek architecture!)
Week 3: Homes/Three Pigs
The final week of our unit, we learned about different types of homes. We also read some different versions of the Three Little Pigs, and compared and contrasted them. Our movie was Three Pigs and a Baby, and we ate breadstick & cheese dippers to represent the second pig’s stick house.
This was a unit that was fun for me to plan, and fun for my kids to complete. If you’d like to see more things we did, you can get my FREE building unit study sheet here. And to see other unit studies we’ve completed, click here.
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