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Building a House

Today we built a house! I started by reading this non-fiction book, Carpenters. 
Next we glued popsicle sticks on a small postal box. I made sure to discuss that the sticks were wood and we were making a wood house. This is a very simple project for a little one. This project could easily be made into a more advanced, creative project. With Jake's age I wanted to keep it simple enough for him to stay engaged. 
We used a glue stick to glue the sticks on the box. This is not the best option but Jake loves using a glue stick and if I pull out another form of glue he always tells me no and asks for a glue stick. I allowed him to use the glue stick, knowing that I would probably have to re-glue a few sticks down. 
After gluing down the sticks we let it dry for a while before painting. I asked Jake to pick the paint color and he wanted to paint the "wookas" (workers) house blue. 
Jake did great painting. I made sure to tell him that workers paint up and down when painting a house. He loved this idea and kept repeating, "up and down" while painting. I helped him out a bit to make sure the house was covered. 
Here is the final product. With the 'wookas' included. They fit nicely into the house. It is a small house but a perfect project for a 2 year old. Jake was able to stay focused without losing interest and complete the entire project. We could have made windows and a roof but he was finished at this level and I followed his ques. 





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