This week’s activities

Fort building – collaborative working

The children had access to plastic poles and ball connectors. These come in a box with pictures of different designs that can be made. The teacher asked them to look at the pictures and decide which fort they would like to build. Once they had chosen which design, the teacher explained how she wanted them to work together to think about what they needed and how they fitted together. She continued that she wanted to hear them talking to each other about their ideas and how they should listen and share their thoughts about how it would work.

First of all, they decided which shape they needed to start – a square seemed to be a popular choice. This led to them adding extra pieces to make the fort longer and taller, talking all of the time about how they could do it, listening to each other and sharing ideas about how to connect the pieces together.

The fort became large enough for them to crawl into and stand up in. One child commented that “it could be a boat” and they sailed in it across the sea, using what they had created in their role play.

Once they had finished sailing, they all co-operated to take the structure apart, before going on to build their next design idea. Fantastic!

There are photos of the activities on our Facebook page and website.

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

The Pre-school Team