Construction-themed activities and centers inspiration is HERE! Get out your planner, and let’s plan a ton of fun and engaging construction-themed activities your little learners (Preschool, Pre-k, and kindergarten) will LOVE and learn a ton from! If you would like all the construction printables, you can find them HERE.
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Literacy Activities
Hammering golf tees into cardboard is fabulous for developing fine motor and hand-eye coordination, and when you write letters on the cardboard, you add a literacy component as well! I always try to add letters to any activity we do together. Your little builders will LOVE hammering letters.
Build letters with ROCKS! I mean, two things most kiddos love are rocks and diggers, so why not use them for a literacy activity?! I found these small pebbles at the Dollar Tree in the floral section. When students pick up the small rocks, they exercise fine motor muscles too!
Building names & sight words! Make word work and learning names FUN again by building the word with letter rocks. It is easy to make word work fun and interactive using a construction theme!
Add construction-themed writing cards (uppercase for the 3-year-olds and lowercase for the Pre-k kiddos), construction writing paper, and STAMPS! Writing is always more fun with stamps (lowercase stamps or uppercase stamps)!
Tap the number of syllables with a HAMMER, then build it with cubes! Using a hammer allows students to move, and students can visually compare how big each word is when they build it with cubes, as well as work on their counting skills.
Fill your bookshelves with construction books (fiction and non-fiction)! Two of my favorites are Old McDonald had a Woodshop and One Big Building. Check out a detailed construction book list HERE.
Sensory Activities
Fill the sensory table with small rocks, then put letter rocks in along with small construction vehicles. You can grab a bag of landscape rocks from Lowes or buy bags of small pebbles from the Dollar Tree to fill the table. Students move, dump, and push the letter rocks around while talking about letters and sounds as they play.
Write letters (or numbers) on smooth rocks (again, I found them at the Dollar Tree) with paint markers, then brush with Mod Podge.
Use the diggers in the art center, and students can make digger track paintings! Mix up some puffy paint using brown liquid watercolor, shaving cream, and glue for the “dirt.” Students can drive the diggers around on the paper for a fun sensory experience and science experience by comparing the tracks.
You can find the orange tray HERE and the yellow tray HERE.
You may need to grab another set of diggers so you can make a construction playdoh tray! Buy or make brown playdoh; grab a handful of small pebbles, diggers, and some short popsicle sticks to create a FUN and engaging playdoh tray.
Your kiddos will be using their imagination, problem-solving, strengthening their fine motor muscles, and using STEM skills as they play!
Math Activities
FREEBIE alert! Construction workers are always measuring, so why not have kiddos measure with TAPE?! I put the short piece of tape at the top then students cut pieces of tape and sort them by length.
If you want to make the activity harder, have students measure each piece of tape with counting cubes and then write down the length.
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Make 10 with nuts and bolts! Making 10 helps kiddos develop informal addition and subtraction skills. Students count out the nuts and bolts to make ten and then discuss all the different ways to make ten. Younger students can use this activity as a counting game to develop one-to-one correspondence.
Grab those craft sticks and build shapes! Identify the shapes and talk about the characteristics of each shape, such as how many sides and corners/vertices does it have?
STEM & Blocks Center
FREEBIE ALERT! Print THESE construction job photographs and have students pretend to be various construction workers at the dollhouse. Students can install plumbing, electricity, bricks, and shingles on the roof. Put out the plastic string for wire, straws for plumbing pipes, tape for bricks, and cut up brown cardstock for roof shingles.
Plus, it is AMAZING fine motor work too!
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Inspire your little Engineers with Construction STEM I Can Build cards (included in the STEM Transportation pack), diggers, measuring tape, rocks, and construction books. Get your kiddos planning, designing, constructing, and building various structures in no time!
blueprint paper for students to draw their structures just like real architects! Add construction hats, construction vests, pretend tools, and empty paint cans (from Loews) so students can dress up like real Engineers and use their imagination as they build!
Art & Fine Motor Activities
Creating a paint sample collage is the perfect way to practice cutting and exploring colors! If your paint samples are 3 inches wide, just cut the strips vertically to an appropriate width for your students.
Make houses and other structures with popsicle sticks and toothpicks. Cut up brown tissue paper for students to use for dirt at the construction site.
Nuts, bolts, & washers! Go to the hardware store and buy some real washers, bolts, and nuts. Place inside buckets for endless hours of fine motor fun. Trust me, your kiddos will LOVE manipulating these real tools. This is a great nap time activity too!
Construction and Building Science
Building and construction is PACKED with tons of science, STEM, and math experiences. Explore various building supplies and materials and building techniques. Notice the parts of a building and how you can create various types of structures. Little learners will LOVE my All About Building science unit, which you can grab HERE from my TPT store.
Dramatic Play
Take the construction theme to the dramatic play center by changing it into a Construction Site! Grab my Construction Site Dramatic Play pack for tons of printables to make your site AMAZING, or check it out on my website HERE.
Now I’m sure your mind is going crazy with ideas and all these ideas, so I’m here to help with all the Construction Math and Literacy Center printables already ready for you. Just print, prep, and play!
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