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Let's Build a House!

Sorry the posts are missing for this week we had company! We still enjoyed Structured Play activities, I am just late to post!
We have these floor mat squares that look like wood. Jake and I decided to use these squares to build a house. We worked together doing this project. He likes to work with someone! He plays on his own very well but when he is "working" he wants a partner. Sometimes he tells me he is the boss and sometimes I am the boss. Today I was the boss!
Safety is always first on Jake's mind! He usually wears his vest, hat and goggles. He started by stacking the squares to get them where we needed them. 
I found a Crayola Dry Erase Book with a Construction theme. It is line practice workbook for pre-writing skills. Jake saw it and fell in love! The cutest thing is that he thought it was "Blueprints." We have been talking a lot about the process of building. He is fascinated by plans and blueprints. Before I could introduce the book he had picked it up and decided it was blueprints. I decided to let him go with this for a while. He looks at the book and sees pictures of tools, trucks and maps. He uses those to "know" what to do!
He did a lot of "work" on the pieces to get them just right and ready to be used. This involved a ton of pretend play. I love to see his imagination at work. I do not have any pictures of our house because we were so busy working that forgot to shoot pictures. (Imagine a 3 sided building with a triangle roof.) That tells you how deep our play became! Taking pretend play into and deeper level of concentration is so important to imagination development. Especially at this age- help teach/facilitate it now and they will be able to do it on their own as they get older!




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