Another week in Theme: Construction!
Theme: Construction
Using Construction Tools – Students were able to use real construction tools, such a hammers, screwdrivers and wire cutters. They were well supervised by the teaching mother and another participating mom. Students wore safety goggles and used tools to manipulate materials, such as hammering nails into board, screwing screwing, and cutting and twisting wire.
Construction/Building Toys – Hands On As We Grow has put together this wonderfully descriptive list of the top ten toys for children who are builders.
Construction Themed Books
These are a few more of our favorite construction themed books:
Building a House by Byron Barton I Want To Be A Builder by Dan Liebman Construction Workers by Tami Deedrick
Reading
Phonemic Awareness Skill: Phoneme Isolation: Final Sound – Students practiced listening for the last sound in words. Say a word, (preferably a one syllable word), emphasizing the last sound. For example: Red. Re/ddd/. What sound do you hear at the end of the word red?
Phonics: Letter Oo (short sound only) – Students learned to identify the letter Oo and it’s sound. The participating mom used color photos beginning with the /o/ sound. Many photos contained the /o/ sound in the middle of a word, which is much more common. Examples: ostrich, octopus, fox, dog, lock, etc. Students practiced saying each picture name, emphasizing the /o/ sound at the beginning and in the middle of the word.
***Note: There are very few words that begin with a true short /o/ sound. Don’t be temped to use words like “owl” and “orange” to demonstrate the short /o/ sound.
Introduction to Decoding – Now that the students have learned another vowel, they can have more exposure to basic decoding. Begin by setting out a card with the letter o on it. Ask for the sound. (/o/). Set out the letter n and asked for the sound (/n/). Then blend the sounds together to say the word “on”. Continue this procedure, with the letter o and t, then add consonants to the beginning of the word, forming the words, pot, rot, lot, dot, got, and so on.
Math
Sorting and Fitting Nuts and Bolts – Getting Messy with Ms. Jessi has a wonderful post about construction themed activities, but I really liked her idea to use nuts and bolts as a math tools. Select a large assortment of sizes and have the kiddies match the nut with the correct bolt. Students can also order these by size, or height.
Number Matching – Preschool Printables offers a small, but very, very cute, selection of construction printables, including a couple for number matching.
Writing
Several activities shared this week can double as writing activities, because of the need of fine motor skills. Examples are using construction tools, building with blocks, and matching nuts and bolts.
Next Week
- Review of all previously taught phonemic awareness and phonics skills
- construction theme

I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
JDaniel would love the nuts and bolts activity. I will be sharing this post on Read.Explore.Learn’;s Facebook page and Pinterest board.
Love it! We have a Things That Go series going on at our blog, so I thought I would share. This is from Week #2, which was trucks, but we are up to Week 8 (this week, which was Things That Go in space!) http://jennifischer.blogspot.com/2012/11/ten-for-tuesday-things-that-go-series_13.html
I love how much you have worked into the theme including real tools.
We are featuring building & construction posts at the Empty Your Archive party this week and I would love it if you would link up – Alice @ Mums Make
Lists http://mumsmakelists.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/empty-your-archive-15.html