Constructive Play

by Suzanne Legault

Children are instinctively creative builders. They enjoy using all sorts of manipulatives -- toilet paper rolls, building blocks or pieces of cardboard -- to construct towers, homes or even fiery dragons! Providing children with the opportunity to play with manipulatives in a safe, stimulating environment is crucial to their healthy development. Manipulatives enhance fine motor development by requiring the controlled use of hand and finger muscles; they also help develop important eye-hand coordination. As children experiment with building, they learn about important concepts such as gravity, stability and patterning. The following suggestions will help enhance the constructive play of the children in your care.

Opportunities for free play should be encouraged at any level of development. Children must be allowed to daydream, walk around, observe others and ask questions. Directed play involves providing opportunities for children to engage in creative activities. Stories and picture books can be used as "building starters" to help inspire the children. Mud Puddle, a Robert Munsch classic, is a favourite. What child cannot relate to mud puddles? After reading the story aloud, ask the children to build things that will keep them dry, such as raincoats out of colourful crepe paper; umbrellas out of popsicle sticks and cardboard; and protective shields of aluminum pie plates and string. For more directed activities, use these building starters and establish additional criteria that the children must meet. For example, ask each group of children to build a house for the three little pigs. Some will build with straw and glue, others will use sticks, glue and string, while still others will use toy bricks or rocks. Once they have finished, give the children ample time to test their structures against strong winds -- in the form of huffing and puffing of course! Let them come up with their own conclusions about different types of building materials and durability. You could extend this activity by using building blocks to graph the test results, providing paper for drawings, and displaying magazines and books that contain pictures of houses around the world.

Planning inspiring activities requires time, effort, creativity and resourcefulness. There are many books that cover thematic approaches to activities. There are also lots of ideas that take a problem solving approach with an emphasis on design and technology. Some titles include: Theme-a-saurus; Giant Encyclopedia of Theme Activities for Children 2 to 5; An Early Start to Technology; and the LEGO DACTA Idea Box.

The best activities often involve smaller groups of children. A group of four to six children ensures that a collaborative, cooperative approach will be taken. Although children two to four years of age will build independently at first, the group setting will encourage cooperation though sharing and discussion. Ideally, groups will be a mixture of younger and older children working together, thereby bringing together varying levels of ability and experience.

Both free play and directed play are especially important with mixed-aged groups. While the youngest children in the group need free time to explore and discover, the older members will respond favourably to challenges that reinforce their skills. Starting off with free play activities will also allow the group members to get to know each other. Consider the following examples as starting points:

Keeping a good supply of building manipulatives in your library or reading centre could turn out to be doubly productive. For example, listening to a book being read may inspire children to build something new, or it may motivate them to pick up a book that compliments their creativity.

Construct a 24-hour museum to display the children's creations. A thick cardboard or rectangular sheet, folded in three and then opened, can serve as a stand-alone backdrop for the museum. Let the children decorate this backdrop and explain how this will be a special place where visitors and other children will be able to come and view their materpieces. Allow the children to decide what will be displayed and help them make exhibit labels. The children can also draw pictures of their models and dictate or write stories about them.

Popular themes such as Community, Dinosaurs, Transportation and Animals are great starters for building activities that promote language development through role-playing and cooperative play.

• Community: On a large sheet of drawing paper, create a community map. Encourage the children to use materials such as crayons, markers, pebbles, twigs, clay, stickers, figurines and building bricks, in order to make their community map more realistic.

• Dinosaurs: Spread out a pile of building elements on the floor and cover them up with a blanket. Have the children go on a dinosaur dig. Like true paleontologists, they'll dig up all the pieces needed to rebuild a dinosaur.

• Transportation: Have the children build models of boats and test them in a container of water. Does the boat float? Tip over? Sink to the bottom? Let the children investigate and find out which models seem to float best.

• Animals: Dramatize the song "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" with different farm animals that the children have created. Make interesting animal models by incorporating feathers and wool between building bricks.

Ask two children to take turns placing elements in the construction of a specific project or pattern. In this activity, the children need to respond to each other's placement in order to complete the model. Try to get them to really work together! For example, ask the pair to pretend that they are a giant two-headed monster by placing one arm around each other's back. The pair should only have one left arm and one right arm free to work on the project.

Using a light source, such as an overhead projector or a flashlight, cast shadows of simple constructions that are made of two or three elements. After the children have played with the shadows, ask them to draw what they think the shadows of their new constructions will look like. Have the children compare their predictions to the actual shadows.

Start this game by letting the children's imaginations run free as they build all sorts of wonderful models. Gather the children and their models in a circle. One child, who gets to play the master detective, is allowed to ask up to 10 questions in order to determine what someone else's model represents. For example, the master detective could ask: "Does it live in a zoo? Does it jump? Is it a monkey?" As a facilitator, you will be able to help each child formulate new questions. The child who is being interrogated gets to be the next master detective.

Children love to build tall structures! Ask the children to build a tower that is as tall as they are, or even taller! Compare the towers. Are they all tall? Thin? Sturdy? Talk about real towers. What makes real towers strong? What makes real towers fall? Have the children rebuild their towers according to their own theories. Test the sturdiness of the models by using a technique that is fair to all the children. For example, you can fan the towers gently, use a hair blower or shake the table that the models are displayed on. This activity will help the children discover important science related-concepts.

Show the children how to build long models by placing a piece of string between two building bricks and snapping the bricks together. Have the children continue adding bricks to the string. Ask each child to build a slithery snake or caterpillar. How long is your snake? Longer than both of your shoes, toe to heel? Let the children compare the lengths of their models with others. Suggest that they link their models with others. How long could we possibly make it? This fun activity will help the children acquire important math and language skills.

For teachers by teachers (1993). Giant Encyclopedia of Theme Activities for Children 2 to 5. Mount Rainier, Maryland: Gryphon House. Graphics are taken from the LEGO DACTA Idea Box. Photos are to be credited LEGO DACTA.

This article first appeared in Interaction published by the Canadian Child Care Federation, Winter, 1995.

Posted by: the Canadian Child Care Federation, September 1996.

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