Building the Big Wall
Builders carry bricks (foam blocks) from the supply yard to the building site, over the scaffold, across the trench, through the pipe and up the crane, and pour cement into the mixer. At the end, they use all the bricks to build a wall with a door and walk through it.
How to play
- The teacher shows the site: scaffold (gym bench), trench (two ropes), pipe (play tunnel), crane (stacked mats to climb up and down), cement mixer (a bucket for beanbag “cement”) and the building site marked with cones (2 min).
- The teacher walks the course with a brick, showing how to push it ahead through the pipe and set it on top before climbing the crane (2 min).
- First lap without a brick to learn the way, leaving one by one once the child ahead has crossed the scaffold (3 min).
- Each builder takes a brick from the yard, carries it through the site, tosses a beanbag into the mixer and drops the brick at the building site; go back and take another until the yard is empty (7 min).
- Together at the building site, stack the bricks in a row to make a low wall and leave a gap for a door (2 min).
- Grand opening: walk one by one through the door in the wall and give ourselves a builders' round of applause (2 min).
Rules
- One brick at a time, hugged tight.
- One builder at a time on the scaffold, no passing.
- In the pipe, push the brick ahead of you.
- We build the wall, we don't knock it down.
Variations
Easier
For 3-year-olds, the scaffold is a rope on the ground, the crane is one folded mat, and they build the wall with the teacher.
Standard
For 4-year-olds, use the bench, a two-mat crane and a wall two rows high.
Harder
For 5-year-olds, pairs carry a big block together on the last stretch and decide the wall's shape themselves.
Adaptations
- Limited mobility: the child is site foreman and places the bricks others bring, or follows a parallel route with the brick in the lap.
- Autism: a drawn map of the site with arrows and the same task order every time.
- Different skill levels: slower children can skip the crane and take a floor path beside it.
Learning goals
- Carry a bulky object through different obstacles.
- Reach a shared goal: empty the yard and build the wall.
- Cooperate on the final build.
Equipment for a class of 25
- bloques de gomaespuma: 25
- banco sueco: 1
- cuerdas: 2
- túnel de tela: 1
- colchonetas: 3
- saquitos: 10
- cubo: 1
- conos: 4
Teacher tip
Use foam blocks only, never wooden ones. Keep the yard and the building site apart so kids going and coming don't cross paths. Keep the wall low, below the waist, so nothing happens if it tips.
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