This week’s theme is CONSTRUCTION! Ready to build, dig & wheel?  This week we’ll make, taste, read and play with all things construction! For more on our free simple preschool activities at home series, click here. The intro post tells all about this simple program, ages, etc. You’ll also find a list of all the themes there. 

Simple Preschool At-Home Activities: Construction

BOOKS: 

1. Mighty, Mighty Construction Site 
2. Digger, Dozer, Dumper
3. B is for Bulldozer 
4. Little Excavator
5. Building a House
6. Roadwork 
7. Dig, Dogs, Dig (early reader level 1)

A BOOK TO LISTEN TO:

This is a great book of poems to listen to and this video is a whole lesson including seeing lots of toy trucks:

SONG: Wheel’s on the Bus 

We like this YouTube video to sing a long to: 

CRAFT: Painting Rocks 

This one can take just a few minutes or all morning…. You can simply give the child paint and rocks or

1. Take a walk around the yard or neighborhood collecting different size rocks
2. Give the rocks a “bath” in some soapy water in your water table or a bucket (let dry)
3. Paint the rocks
4. Use the rocks to build, play with them with toy trucks, etc

SNACK: Dirt cups! Make chocolate pudding or use pudding cups. Top with crushed oreos. 

QUIET TIME BOX: See this post for quiet time box info. This week make a construction theme box:

1. Free Printable Dump Truck Coloring Sheet
2. Construction play dough kit (we LOVE this one from Ready Set Dough)
   

    

3. Road to build and cars: We love Way to Play for building roads. HOURS of fun & they’re so well made. Our favorite cars & trucks are Candylab Toys. Their new food trucks are TOO cute!
4. Busy Builders Activity Book (this is an awesome find for $6.99)   
5. One or both of the construction themed sensory activities below 

SENSORY: Construction Site Sensory Bin (for details & supply list click here) 

SENSORY: Hammering Letters 

This is my boys #1 favorite way to work with letters. Get some play dough, a toy hammer and letter stamps. We use these these Melissa & Doug stamps that I got on Amazon. Have the child roll out or flatten their dough. Then hold the letter like a nail and hammer with the toy hammer. It’s fun for little hands to just play and make letters and a great way to get older preschool students to practice their name and the start of sight words.

 

SCIENCE: Building Bridges 

For this you’ll need cups the same height (paper cups work well) and popsicle sticks. Turn the cups over and use the popsicle sticks to make a bridge. It’s fun to then see if toys like small toy people, animals or cars can go over the bridges. Make longer bridges by lining up more cups and popsicle sticks in a row. If your child enjoys this and want more “bridge challenges” I added some more on our Simple Preschool Weekly Themes Pinterest board. 

IMAGINATIVE PLAY 

Pretend to work in construction! Our favorite for dress up and imaginative play is the Learning Resources Tool Belt. All of the tools fit easily into the belt and there’s a “real” nut and bolt to play with. Speaking of Learning Resources, they have an awesome site with over 3,000 ideas, activities, and product bonus content available here: Learning Resources. 

SHARING:

“Obeying traffic laws”

Set up a play road and practice taking turns, stopping at stop signs, traffic lights etc. This is a fun way to practice sharing when you can’t have a group of kids: “share” the road! 

TV SHOW: Terrific Trucks and Tom the Tow Truck (both Amazon Prime)

ACTIVE: Play Red Light, Green Light 

Pin this preschool construction theme post for later!