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3-12-01I have labeled my unit block shelf with outlines arranged into different shapes (like a puzzle) I change after about three months. All of our kids can put the blocks away exactly after some practice and it is like working puzzles when they are cleaning up. An example is small triangles in a house shape, using 10 blocks.
3-12-01During the holidays or during a thematic unit on Birthdays, wrap boxes in wrapping paper and allow the children to build with these new blocks.
11-4-00In my 3 year old class I brought in leaves, different colors and shapes. I asked them to put the alike ones in a pile. After that I had them count them and they got the blocks and stacked the blocks to how many the alike leaves and colors there were. The kids really liked this idea because it involved counting, colors, and outdoor stuff!
11-4-00Block Mats Materials: l large sheet of oaktag, assorted blocks, pencils, crayons, or washable markers. The child will select as many blocks as he wants and lay them any way he chooses on the oak tag and trace around them. The oak tag is labeled with the artists name and placed in the block area. Other children are encouraged to select a block mat and match the blocks to the shapes traced.
10-16-00In our block center we added rain gutters and small cars. The children used unit blocks to build ramps for the gutters. this was great for block building as well as science (rolling, gravity) We talked about how fast they thought each car would go and how long it would take the car to get to the end. (math skill of estimation).
9-8-00During our "Family Unit" we send home a Capri-Sun box (that we have collected over the summer). We have the parents cover them with construction paper, pictures of their child, as well as, pictures of their families. Encourage the parents to get very creative! They, then cover with clear contact paper. When the children bring them in we have show n' tell during our circle time and have the children tell us all about the people in their families. We then add them into our block center and encourage the children to have fun!
8-30-00Take a picture of each child in your classroom with a digital camera. You may want to take a full body picture and a face picture of each child because you will attach both pictures to a toilet tissue tube. Place each child's tube in the block area for children to use at Block play. You may also take digital pictures of familiar buildings in the community and attach these to boxes and place them in the block area for excellent visuals.
8-29-00I brought in a box of small paper cups and the kids in my Sunday School loved stacking them like pyramids and building corrals, castles, etc...you can make suggestions that go along with the lesson.
8-27-00We've had a lot of fun making "blocks" by stuffing brown paper grocery bags with all sorts of recyclable materials such as shredded paper, plastic trash bags, old newspapers, etc... Just fill the brown paper bags about half full of your product and then fold over and tape closed with sturdy tape. These huge blocks are great fun to paint on, marker, color, whatever.
8-15-00After spending a long time building their masterpiece, some children are sad to see their creations come down and put away. Keep a disposable camera handy at all times. Snap a picture of what was build then devote a small wall space near the block area to hang the pictures. Every few weeks make room for the new pictures by sending the old ones home with the "builder".
7-28-00Add plastics to your block center. Add ice-cream containers, margarine tubs, yogurt tubs etc in various sizes. Provide the lids, if available. Challenge the children to build with the blocks and not stack them inside each other as they may do to start with. It is amazing what they can build and also the height they can reach. We have a policy that the wooden blocks cannot be built above the child's shoulder height, so they really enjoy using the 'plastic containers'. The children now request to have 'plastic days'.
7-22-00It's a very simple idea, but the children love it. In the block area take several different wooden blocks of different sizes and shapes. Trace them on to a piece of poster board. Ours are contacted down to a table and the kids really enjoy matching the bocks to their right shapes!
7-21-00Use the tubes left over from shrink wrap ( the kind that are used in warehouses). Have the kids paint them and use them as building blocks.
7-15-00To make wonderful cardboard blocks, I stuffed newspaper into detergent boxes, covered them with masking tape (for strength) and painted them with enamel paints - they held up for an entire school year of play - indoors and out!
6-8-00After reading the story "Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready For Kindergarten" my preschool kids enjoyed using our large cardboard brick-blocks like we had seen in one of the pictures in the book. One or two kids stand or sit as the others work together to build a wall of bricks all around them. We had so much fun and this was a great way to encourage cooperative play.
6-6-00Take a picture of each child. Glue it onto cardboard or poster board. Cover with clear Contac paper. Cut out each. these classroom paper dolls can be added to the block area too. A small amount of plasticene clay will hold up each at the base.
6-6-00Bring in the outdoors! Add to your block area natural things like logs that are small enough to be moved and handled by the children. Find sections of trees that have holes in them. Get round flat slices of trees. Use boughs of fir trees and other deciduous trees that stay green all year. Use large pinecones and tiny ones. A few rocks that will stack nicely are good too. Now, add forest animals. Later include predator birds like owls, hawks and eagles. Great stories will come from this!
6-5-00I had a problem with my preschoolers racing cars around the room by letting them go and they would fly across the room. I bought colored electric tape and each week or two I would make a shape on the floor (circle, star, triangle etc) and told the children that the cars must stay in that shape. (make it a decent size) Each child had three chances if their car went out of the shape 3 times he/she couldn't play in that area the rest of the day. Once they got the idea it was fun. But I worried about putting restrictions on their creativity so once the situation got under control I stopped putting the shapes on the floor. Every now and then I will still make a shape on the floor, and the children enjoy it when they see the shape to play in.
6-4-00We had blocks with pointed tops made to resemble a house. Each child got to decorate their own house. We then took pictures of each child and applied their picture to the house along with their address. We then added them to the block area with some cars. They had a whole neighborhood with all their friends and drove their cars to visit them. When it was time to work on their address, I would have the child go and get their house. It saved me time getting the information from my file. Easy & Fun!
5-29-00I divided my bulletin board into 20 boxes (one for each child). I put their name on each box. Above the bb I hung up a sign that read "Artists Corner." The children were free to hang up any art work they made at school or home in their box. They could also change it as often as they wanted. I kept this bb up for 5 months - it was a hit.
5-25-00Add books about building and construction along with notepads, rulers, and pencils and "scrolls" of butcher paper to your block area. This will extend the print rich environment concept to this area. Children can measure and "record" information about what they have built. Another thing you might add are "floor plans" cut from architectural magazines. You can also make a book of buildings (barns, skyscrapers, strip malls, houses, apartments, etc) with your class from pictures in magazines cut out and pasted to "construction" paper to keep in the block area.
5-25-00If you have big wooden blocks have the children set them up like a walkway and put toy microphones in it. The children pretend that they are putting on a concert and they sing. It is really cute to watch and the children enjoy it.
Date: 3-31-00Box Play- Empty Boxes from shoes to as big as the ones that diapers come in to a retail outlet in are set in an area where there is room for building, and exploring .
Date: 3-11-00I had saved several of the small green containers that strawberries come in and didn't quite know what to do with them. I put them in my block center and the children went wild. They used them for cages for animals in our zoo unit, on top of trucks to make dump trucks, and to stack and build with. I was amazed at how many things they were used for. I also put a few in my other centers and the children came up with so many uses for them.
Date: 2-6-00If you happen to know anyone who is building a house or you know a carpenter, you can get leftover pieces of carpet, linoleum, and other materials to have in the block area for the children to build houses. This came in handy during "Where I live is Home" unit.
Date: 12-21-00For a winter theme: Collect empty clean milk cartons paint them white and use them as blocks. Have children make "igloos" with the milk carton blocks. You can collect half gallon cartons to do this on a larger scale.
Date: 1-15-00You can make lots of different durable cardboard figures to play with in the block area. Just get some very thick cardboard (we get ours for free from a paper mill) and use Podgy stuff to glue it on. Then cut out around the picture. I did this during my "Alaska" week... I printed out polar bears and penguins on the computer, cut them out, then used the technique above. The kids had lots of fun building igloos for their polar bears and penguins! Date: 12-28-99In our block area, I put 30 12x12x12 boxes from U-haul. I also added one large dishpak box. the children have made everything from roads to Sesame Place, forts, castles and two bedroom homes! They also use our milk carton, unit and wood block to "add" finishing touches. Contact_FullName: ideaNewspaper Blocks. Roll up several newspapers in a stack, into rolls. Tape the rolls with wide tape or duct tape. provide a basket full of these in the block area and see what the children's imaginations come up with. (pretend camp fire, stackable, tight rope, make squares, triangles etc.) Date: 11-7-99Contact_FullName: ideaWe are making paper cubes for each member of the child's family and attaching pictures cut out of catalogs/magazines (moms, dads, kids, babies...). Then each child will have a little "block family" to play with. (Next week we are making houses out of cardboard boxes - the two projects could be done as part of one unit and go together.) Date: 11-6-99Contact_FullName: ideaCheerio boxes, applejack boxes, or any size box. can be used to create soft blocks in the block area. First, you will stuff the box with news paper until it becomes very firm, and then you tape up the open side, secondly, you will find your favorite self adhesive shelf paper and cover the box and you now have attractive, different size boxes for building in the block area. Date: 10-1-99
Date: 6-29-99Recently we took a good hard look at our block area. It was boring!!! So, slowly we began to add things like a book on building, a hardhat, rulers and measuring tapes, pencils and paper, and lots of different sized cardboard tubes. The excitement really picked up! Next, we added oversized blocks. We had to time how long children could play in the area it became so popular!!!
Date: 5-25-99I love the story The Napping House.... so I did my best to draw each of the characters small enough to where they can be taped on various sizes of blocks.... the children love stacking each character on each other and then pretending to be the flea who woke everyone up :o)........ this idea can be adapted to other stories as well.
Date: 5-25-99In this area the children may learn different concepts: mathematics, big and little, large and short, tall and short. In this area must be enriched with wood, plastics and cardboard blocks, of different sizes, colors and forms. This is a active area. Must be near of House keeping,music and movement, and water and sand.
Date: 5-25-99use big car sponges and spray them with a clear non toxic paint. you can find them in a lot of bright colors, their cheap, and easy to stack. our toddlers in our center love them.
Date: 5-25-99I traced the basic shapes of our smaller blocks onto different colored felt and cut out many of each. As a group or individual activity, you can use the felt shapes to make a diagram of a structure, then create it out of actual blocks. This is a wonderful help for some children who are still developing the confidence to build.
Date: 3-20-99When you have a selection of large blocks, have the children build a square house so that the sides are about 18 inches high with room for four children inside. No roof needed, obviously. Have the children fill the house with balloons. See if they can keep all of the balloons in their new house. I did this activity with all my 4 yr. olds for the lesson, letter (B b). I used many blue, and black balloons in the block area. The children enjoyed doing this activity for a couple of weeks. Once the balloons were gone, we went on to something different.
Date: 3-20-99I love the story The Napping House.... so I did my best to draw each of the characters small enough to where they can be taped on various sizes of blocks.... the children love stacking each character on each other and then pretending to be the flea who woke everyone up :o)........ this idea can be adapted to other stories as well. Name:
Date: 1-7-99You know those big rolls of toilet tissue that the stores have in their restroom's?? The inner core is made of a thick, durable tube shape that works great in the block area. Just ask a local store if they could keep the empty tubes for you. The children love to play with them and they are free!!
Date: 1-1-99Put a flat sheet in the block area. Children will have tons of fun building forts and tents. Name: Date: 12-26-98Don't throw away those Christmas wrapping paper tubes! Cut them into segments and put them in your block area. These tubes make great tunnels. As soon as they get scroungy looking, throw them away. Name: Date: 11-19-98I went and bought a city rug and put matchbox cars in the block area. The kids love to play with this and the girls like it as much as the boys. they pretty much ignore the blocks though, and just play with the cars on the rug. 10-4-98 Name: Robin 9-14-98 Name: Janice E-Mail: auburnit.concentric.net We made a great road system for our block area. We started with a piece of indoor/outdoor carpeting (fake grass avaliable at your local home improvement store) and drew a map on the back side of the carpet. We then took a stitch remover (you can also use a straightened paper clip) to remove all of the turf from the inside of the map outline. You can make the width of the road any size you want to accommidate hot wheels, to large Little Tyke cars. It takes some time, but the results are well worth it. 9-2-98 Name: Heather E-Mail: kascobey@im4u.net Cut 1/2 inch clear plastic tubing (found in the hardware) in various length, then wrap colored masking tape (7 times) around both ends. You can then use 1/2 inch PVC joints to let the kids build anything they want. You can also throw in some 1/2 inch PVC pipe. If you get really brave you can let them pour colored water through their master piece. 8-18-98 Name: Rhonda E-Mail: rhondawalk@aol.com I took a cheap plastic table cloth and used a permanent marker to draw a road and river for a cowboy's town and indian's village when playing with plastic figures. This can also be done for a city for use with blocks and toy cars. Shower curtains can serve the same purpose. 8-18-98 Name: Leah E-Mail: Leahbehr@AOL.com When we were discussing nutrition with the children and talking about the food pyramid, we (the children) decided they would like to build a food pyramid. I gathered 10 boxes from various places that were approximately the same size. The children helped and we wrapped the boxes in various colors of bulletin board paper ie. brown for the bread and cereal groups. The we started with copies of pictures of food from the various groups the children colored them and cut them out and glued them on the pyramid. Then they wanted to do more so we cut pictures of food from magazines and glued them on as well. The children were very proud of what they had built and they knew about the food pyramid. 7-22-98 Name: Sandy E-Mail: misssandyd@hotmail.com When I do my unit on farm or zoo animals,I put shredded yellow paper in the block area for the children to use as hay. You can purchase the paper at a party store. 7-22-98 Name: Jean E-Mail: mjg74@dfsi.net Make block people and animals: Cut "real" pictures ofpeople and animals from magazines and catalogs. Laminate the pictures and tape them to a tissue or paper towel tube. Put the "people" and "animals" in a labeled container on alabeled shelf near the building blocks. The children really like to use them in their block play. They also like using them for puppets in our little puppet theatre. Use your imagination and make zoo animals, water animals, vehicles, etc. in this way to stimulate children's interest and imagination. Some of the children will begin making theirown characters. Be sure to add the needed materials to the art area for their use. in a labeled better. It's much easier to do this way. 7-17-98 Name: Amber E-Mail: AmberP813@aol.com Check the $$dollar store every-so-often...I have found a plastic road map that can be placed on the floor in the block center. You can also get toy cars for the center. 7-17-98 Name: Joy E-Mail: odonnell@ interlinx.qc.ca If you roll a piece of newspaper tightly and secure with two or three pieces of tape, you can quickly have enough "sticks"for a roof,or a little pig's house. We store ours on end in a cardboard box. An old sheer curtain makes a great addition to this corner, too, making a roof or door. If you have the kind with weights in the hem, even better. The weights help keep the curtain in place. 6-30-98 Name: Gina... E-Mail: blocks This week we are "visiting the arctic" and in the block area we have added gloves and mittens to wear while building igloos and such. 6-7-98 Daylene Go to a paper store or school supply store and ask if they will save the thick cardboard rolls that butcher paper and bulletin board paper comes on. With a saw, cut the cardboard rolls into 1 foot segments. Bring them to school and leave them in your art area for awhile. Let the children color them, paint them, sponge paint on them, put stickers on them, etc. When the children are done decorating them, put them in your block area. These make great towers, tunnels, etc. 5-27-98 Daylene This is an idea that you can use both in your science area and block area. Buy a large Rubbermaid under-the-bed plastic box. Fill it up 1/2 way with soil. Have the children sprinkle grass seed all over the top of the soil. Cover the seed lightly with some more soil. Set your grass box in a sunny area. Don't forget to water it!!! Once you have a nice, green patch growing, move your grass box to your block area. Sit back and watch all the imaginative ideas the children can come up with using the grass box. 5-18-98 Name: Lynn E-Mail: hogerly@ix.netcom.com Use blocks to build road ways for toy cars. Build bridges and tunnels to drive under. Use rows of blocks as sides of the road or drive the cars on top of connected blocks. 5-12-98 Name: Kristi E-Mail: mnb2b@mci2000.com To get girls more involved in the block area, we collected "My Pretty Ponies" and put them in the block area. Small dolls (not Barbies) work really well for this, too. 5-12-98 Name: Kristi E-Mail: mnb2b@mci2000.com Go to the hardware store and purchase inexpensive plastic piping, some straight pieces and some bent pieces. Put these in the block area with marbles or small cars and let the kids create their own designs. 5-1-98 Name: Linda E-Mail: gummylump@aol.com URL: http://www.gummylump.com Have the children use the building blocks as measuring tools. Pick a rectangular block and have the children measure each other in units of that block. For example a child may be 30 blocks long.This is a great lesson for introducing measurement and rehearsing counting skills. 3-31-98 Name: Teri E-Mail: teri123@yahoo.com During your winter theme, build a large igloo out of milk cartons for your children to play in. To build the igloo you will need approx. 250 plastic gallon milk containers. Lay approximately 25 jugs in a circle. Remove 4-5 for an opening for the doorway. Hot glue the containers together. Continue stacking the cartons in the shape of an igloo. I teach 3-5 year olds and this creation lasted an entire month. The hot glue holds together great and it is very stable. Hope your class enjoys it as much as my classes did. 3-26-98 Daylene Make An Off-Road Area For Your Block Center Needed The largest under-the-bed plastic box you can find (Rubbermaid, etc) Dirt Rocks Water Have the children help you to fill the Rubbermaid box 3/4 to the top with dirt. Mix in enough water to make the dirt into mud that you can form into a ball. Sit the box outside in the direct sunlight for a couple of days until the dirt has hardened. Have the children gather rocks for their "off-road" area and store them in a separate container. Place both the rocks and the Rubbermaid container in the block area. Let the children explore! The great thing about this activity is that you can make several containers with hardened mud. When it is clean-up time, put the lids on and stack them in a corner. Keep a child sized broom and dustpan in your block area so the children can help clean up. 3-17-98 Name: Jackie E-Mail: jwaustin@san.rr.com Last summer when it was really hot, I asked parents to freeze water in as many containers as they possibly could. Then I purchased four large blocks of ice from the grocery store. We used our blocks to build a beautiful ice sculpture. To help it stick together we sprinkled salt on it and we also dripped food coloring on it. We discussed concepts like evaporation, temperature and melting. It was a wonderful way to keep cool and it was truly a beautiful sight! 3-4-98 Name: Daniella E-Mail: fisherwr@cinci.infi.net Use large pieces of cardboard and markers to draw maps of ciities, zoos, etc. The children can then build appropriate buildings for the town. They can also drive cars through the streets. An alternative is to paste unneeded copies of street or topographical maps to the cardboard. The clean tops of pizza boxes are great for this. I also used an old Sunday School poster of the Old City of Jerusalem mounted on cardboard. My boys then built the city wall, towers, etc., and acted out different scenes from Bible stories. 3-4-98 Name: Allyson E-Mail: goldjay@dpnet.net Depending on the theme, we change the theme of the block area. For example, we were learning about dinosaurs, we added plastic dinosaurs and lots of plastic trees. While learning about people around the world, we added small play people and things like cars and houses to the area. When learning about food, plastic food was added and children drove food in trucks from "farms" to "stores" etc. 2-28-98 Name: Carol (Australia) E-Mail: apple@wantree.com.au We purchased some Fisher Price knights and horses and added these to the block corner - suddenly children were building castles rather than roads or high structures. Boys were into dramatic play with appropriate language which had been sadly lacking. 2-23-98 Name: cindy E-Mail: cin69@webtv.net Cover small boxes with different textures i.e. material, sandpaper, lace, etc. or large boxes with carpet remnants and vinyl flooring remnants (it's amazing what you can get if you ask). Place these texture boxes in your block area and let the children explore their textures as they build with the boxes and blocks. 2-8-98 Name: AmySue E-Mail: txbarbrat@aol.com Ice Cave We took our block center and turned it into a wonderful place for the children!! Our block center is in a corner so that helps. We hung long pieces of white butcher block paper around the edges of the center. We put blue butcher block paper on the walls....then added a zillion blue and white streamers hanging from the ceiling. We put blue nap mats on the floor then painted some of our blocks white and wrapped others in white paper (the kids love to build igloos!) We threw in TONS of cotton balls and added stuffed polar bears, seals, fish, penguins etc! This center has been up for 3 months and the kids still enjoy it!!! 2-4-98 Name: Cathy E-Mail: CL9177@AOL.COM Foam Core Take large pieces of foam core and cut out shapes. You need many piece the same size. Use duct tape and tape two pieces together, one with a shape cut out one with out. Not all pieces need to have shapes. Have this and a blanket out for kids. They can make mazes, forts, post office, houses and so on. 2-2-98 Name: Kathy E-Mail: EKCC@AOL.COM It can be expensive to take photographs of the block creations your students make. Also, some children stay for a long time in the block area and don't have a "paper" to take home and show Mom and Dad. My solution: make a simple sketch of the child's block creation and label it with their name. The children love it! 1-28-98 Name: Kris E-Mail: d7403pn2@ozemail.com.au When children are playing with the blocks, place some cards nearby with the words (and a simple picture) tall, short, wide, narrow, long, short, straight, curvy, zig-zag. etc . These will give the children building ideas as well as increasing mathematical concepts and vocabulary. Kris from Australia Name: Staci E-Mail: sbridges1@capecod.net Put wrapping paper into the blocks area with tape, bows, ribbons etc. The children can wrap up small and large blocks like presents. Name: Staci E-Mail: sbridges1@capecod.net Turn the dramatic play area into a post office. Since so many cards and packages are sent during the month of December this would be a great way for the kids to role play. Don't forget to include stamps, envelopes ,markers, pens, stamps and stamp pads, phone book, scale for weighing packages, phones, tape. Turn the block area into a wrapping station where they can package boxes to be mailed. Use a large box-painted and a hole cut into it for a mail box. Make sure to include a canvas tote for a mail bag. Name: Rhonda E-Mail: rhondawalk@aol.com I bought toy tools for my block area. Children use the tools when they "Construct" buildings. A diaper wipe container or other similar size box with a lid makes a good tool box. Name: Jamie E-Mail: clev10@mail.gorilla.net We have a pet rat that is quite tame and likes to be handled. The children build mazes out of blocks for the rat to run through. Sometimes they will build her a house. Name: Marlene E-Mail: mapiggy@aol.com Once every couple of weeks try a girls only block day. Name: Rhonda E-Mail: CPAULC @ aol.com If you live in where you do or will soon have snow falling--try adding some polyester fiberfill to your block area so the children can drive thru it or add it to their buildings, etc. Name: Michelle E-Mail: braden@myriad.net RAMPS Buy sections of foam 1 1/4"copper-tubing insulation. They come in 6 foot sections--cut into three foot lengths, then cut each piece in half lenghwise with a utility knife. This gives you a "ramp" with a 1 1/4" semicircle down the middle. The kids can roll marbles or Micro Machine cars down the ramp. The ramp can be twisted and bent, and used in all sorts of ways. For more fun I include some cardboard tubes to use as tunnels. They stick one end of the ramp into the tube and watch the marbles roll out the other end. Submitted By: Daylene E-Mail: aactchrday@aol.com Trees and Flowers Small Silk flowers, bushes, etc. Small plastic flower pots Plaster of Paris Fill the flower pots with Plaster of Paris. Stick the silk flowers into the flower pot and plaster mixture. Hold the flowers in place until the plaster starts to set. When the plaster is completely dry, place the pots in your block area. Submitted By: Daylene E-Mail: aactchrday@aol.com Roads And Roofs Buy cheap peel-n-stick linoleum tile squares at a home improvement store. Cut cardboard to fit each tile. Adhere the tiles to the cardboard pieces and place in your block area. The children go wild using the tiles to build roads and to add roofs to their structures. Name: ginny E-Mail: Msginnyedu@aol.com Name: ginny E-Mail: Msginnyedu@aol.com Block storage is sometimes a problem. I have tried cupboards and shelves. I have tried having the children put blocks away by matching the blocks to shapes taped on the shelf. I now have come to the conclusion that the best and most child friendly way to store blocks is either in big plastic tubs or containers such as Rubber Maid makes. I store my smaller blocks in one color container and larger blocks in another color. The kids put away the blocks by sorting sizes. We also use plastic baskets in the center to hold animals, people, bugs, cars or whatever I want the children to integrate into their block play. Since we went to this method the children have played blocks almost everyday. Submitted By: Daylene E-Mail: aactchrday@aol.com Add dress up clothes to your block area to extend the children's play. Try to get "themed" dressups such as: a farmer, a police officer, a fire fighter, a race car driver, a mechanic, princess (for building castles), zoo keeper, train conductor, etc... When we did this, our block area became the "happening" place during free choice. Submitted by: Barbara E-Mail: bbacker@awod.com Cover Pringles cans or empty cracker boxes with aluminum foil. Use a permanent marker to draw on windows and doors. Use markers to "color in" the windows and doors to make them more attractive. Place in your block area. Submitted by: Barbara E-Mail: bbacker@awod.com On a color copier, I make copies of the children's photos and use clear Contact paper to attach each to a clean, empty food can. I place these in the block center just like Sharon does with her blocks, above. For an inexpensive substitute, cut pictures of children from school supply catalogs. Use clear Contact paper to attach these to blocks or food cans. Submitted by: Michele E-Mail: michele@bayou.com Cut new 1/2" pvc pipe into several lengths ranging from 4" to 10". Purchase joints to serve as connectors. Joints come in a variety of styles including straight, L shaped, T shaped or + shaped. A 20 foot length of pipe and joints (enough to fill a tub) should cost less than $15. I have had great success with this inexpensive block supplement. Submitted by: Kathy E-Mail: 75321,3116 CompuServe Activity Once the children have explored the block corner, and we have discussed all of the various shapes and sizes, I move on to an activity which is fun to do. Once the children design a block structure that they like, I provide all kinds of boxes, different shapes, sizes, paper towel rolls. gift boxes, tops of boxes, and help them to build a "Box Sculpture" similar to the one they created in the block corner, it is amazing all of the different kids of sculptures we get! Once they are complete the children can paint them, put designs on them, make windows doors, whatever they chose! We display them during our Open School Night! Submitted By: Daylene E-Mail: aactchrday@aol.com Activity: Make your own blocks Materials Sanitized 1/2 gallon paper milk cartons Contact paper Duct tape Procedure Wash and sanitize the inside of the milk cartons with a bleach solution (1Tbs of bleach to 1 gallon of water). Squash the top of the milk carton down until it is square, like the other end of the carton. Secure with duct tape. Cover with contact paper. These blocks are very durable and can be wiped clean. Submitted By: Daylene E-Mail: aactchrday@aol.com Activity: Never ending block structure Materials Polaroid camera Procedure Often, the children in my class work very hard building a block structure. Often, because someone else would be using my classroom later, I would have to ask the children to tear down what they made at the end of center time. This was a very difficult task at times because the children wanted to show their parents what they had built or continue building on their structure the next day. So, I decided that if the children had to remove their structure, I would take a polaroid picture of it first. After I took a picture of the children and their structure, I would tape it to the wall in the block area. This simple act stimulated even more block play! The kids loved having their picture taken. Also, if they wanted to continue on their structure the next day, all the would have to do is look at their picture to remember what it looked like. Submitted By: Diana E-Mail: BOOBear123 Activity: Building With Boxes and Beautiful Junk Materials: Send a note to parents requesting throwaways such as newspaper, cereal boxes, shoe boxes, wrapping paper, foil, etc. Procedure Let the children use their imaginations in creating various types of buildings: apartments, skyscrapers, etc. Use boxes, cover with wrapping paper, foil or newsprint-then decorate. Cut paper squares for windows or glue popsicle sticks, or (an adult) can cut holes for doors and windows. Place your city near the block area, so block play materials can be included in your "city". Submitted By: Sharon E-Mail: Makayla855@aol.com Activity: Block Photos I took pictures of each child standing. After the pictures were developed, I attached the cut-out child onto a rectangle block with clear contact paper. The children use the pictures of themselves to build structures for their friends and themselves!
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