Children had the opportunity to compare pictures of their unit block structures with their original and redesigned sketches. Children were able to observe and note any similarities and differences in their work. They were also able to recognize and recall their work by explaining their building process and talking about any difficulties that they had encountered and how they problem solved.

Some of these difficulties included not having enough square blocks to build the walls of a house, so rectangles were used instead. Another problem was not being able to balance specific blocks to build a pitched roof, so less blocks were used and the placement was modified to make it work. This was an intentional cognitively-focused reflection to set up children for the next step which was very open-ended in how a building is constructed.

For this next step, children had the opportunity to create their re-designed building using mixed media (sticks, clay, and wire). Children had never worked with these materials before so we knew that some problems were going to occur, though they were excited to work with these materials.

Since clay is very dense and heavy children started noticing that their structures were not staying in place. They would lean over, fall or simply not stick to the other materials as children had hoped. Another problem would be trying to bend the wire into something specific. The wire wasn’t able to give them sharp lines or edges and so windows were a little rounded.

There was a lot of teacher guidance, questioning, reasoning and problem solving during this process. Even though children would get frustrated, they really wanted to keep building and put their structure together. If they needed help, they simply asked and I would help. If they didn’t, I just sat back and watched them build.

The last step in our project was to present to the class. This was relatively new because children were not used to “presenting” to the class. They would sometimes talk about their work or show and tell their journals, but it wasn’t a regular thing yet. Children were shy presenting their work, but with a little help from the teacher, they were able to explain to the class how they put their projects together. They were able to talk about the problems they encountered and how they fixed them. They were able to use descriptive math language to talk about their buildings relating to spatial awareness, shapes, quantity and size.

These children started off with little math language and by the end of the project they were including some kind of math vocabulary in each sentence they used to talk about their project. For example: “I put my block here” or “it goes there” to “This small triangle is going on top of the square and next to the bigger rectangle”.

I was very proud and impressed with the children and their growth. They did not give up and were motivated to participate in as many of the steps as possible. Of course, there were moments and parts of the project where some things were too complex for some students. For example, in step nine where children were building with mixed media, one child had difficulty building “up” in a three dimensional way. His project was flat and it almost looked like a blue print of a building instead of an actual structure.

After giving clues, asking leading questions and watching the child start his project over a couple of times and still build in a “blue print” manner, I let him be and he presented his structure as it was. In his mind that’s what a building looked like and that was ok because it was his project and I did not want to interfere with his motivation to finish his project.

This project took a lot of time and work to put together and I was grateful for the support that I received to make it happen. I liked the way that it was organized because each step flowed into the next. The one thing that I would change for the next project is to make sure children have had the opportunity to work with all the materials before using them in a project so they are aware of their characteristics and know how to work with them. I’d also take pictures of their prior step with me to help with recalling information or to use to present to the class so children can get use to “presenting” aspect of the project.

One thing that definitely shined was the mutual respect for the project that helped create a bigger sense of community. Children felt comfortable being themselves and sharing their thoughts and ideas. Children interested in what they were doing and saw math concepts in the world around them. Math became part of a project, part of children’s interest and became the beginning of my own math appreciation. Because of this project, I look forward to incorporating math into all activities and projects. I also learned to trust children and give them credit to be able to participate and finish a long term project.

After having experienced the buildings in these forms, we believed children were ready to design their own building. Before this step there were many conversations and read alouds that examined what a building needed in order to function such as walls, floors, windows, doors, roof, stairs, plumbing, etc.

Children had the opportunity to design/draw their own building using graphite pencils and discuss with the teacher the details of their building. We chose graphite pencils because we wanted the children to be able to show as much detail in their sketch using the pencils with different graphite leads.These different graphite leads meant different shades and thickness of lines were produced and children were able to use different pencils for different purposes.  Children met one on one with the teacher before to discuss what they wanted their building to look like, during to describe what they were drawing and to answer any questions that the children may have, and after to review the design and give children another opportunity to talk about their building before actually building.

Once children were done with their design, they went to the block area to create their building with unit blocks. Children took their sketch with them and used it as a guide to construct their building. I was able to quickly see their vision come to life and it was great to see how motivated the children were to build and also talk about their building. This step gave the children the opportunity to design something using their previous knowledge of what a building is and applying it to their sketch and structure. Children’s structures varied in sizes and shapes.

Math language started flowing naturally and in part of conversations. Children were talking about the quantity of blocks they used to represent specific features in their buildings and specific sizes such as how long, short, tall and wide some blocks needed to be in order to fit in their building or to support specific parts of the building like the roof or placement of windows. They addressed how they were to get in the building and showed an understanding of symmetry and spatial awareness when they wanted a specific block to work, but couldn’t so they had to place it in a different spot to make sure their structure was balanced. They were solving problems involving math!

Once children were done building with the unit blocks, they were asked to draw what they had represented with the unit blocks and we called this step a building re-design. This new sketch was drawn with new ideas based on what they had learned in the previous steps. This new sketch was very similar to their original design, but it was also different in the sense that it was a lot clearer. Lines were crisper, sharper and their ideas were much more obvious in this second sketch.

Children were working very hard and were very eager to continue in the building project, especially now that they were creating something new and the design was theirs and belonged to nobody else. In the last blog, I will talk about the final steps and the reflection process that happened both within the students and teachers. I will include what worked well and what could’ve been changed and how this project changed the way I looked at math in my classroom for the better!

The second step of our project was to represent the building that was sketched and seen on our neighborhood walk. Children used table blocks to represent these buildings. Table blocks were chosen because we thought they would be easy to manipulate and were smaller than unit blocks so they would be able to represent what their vision was on a smaller scale. We encouraged children to talk about their sketch as they were building. When they were done we put the sketch next to their structures and children were able to point out specific details that they included in their sketch such as the number of bricks on the side of the building and the placement of windows, the height of the building with the placement of the windows and the arches located as a feature above the stairs of a building with the number of antennas on top of the roof. We were able to see the beginning of concepts such as quantity, height, the recognizing of other shapes and spatial awareness and we were excited!

We wanted children to keep working with different open-ended materials and have more opportunities to use the neighborhood as a reference so our next step included just that. For the third step of the project, children had the opportunity to go on a neighborhood walk once again, but this time to look at the different types of buildings in the neighborhood. Before going on the walk, the whole class met as a group and we talked about the different types of buildings and what their purpose was in the neighborhood

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We made a list (grocery store, doctor’s office, library, restaurants) and went on a search for these buildings. Once we were outside and the buildings were spotted, children took pictures of them to take inside and discuss further. Once inside, children represented these buildings using Legos. While putting their structure together, children pointed out specific details of their building and were very eager to try to match their structure to the building that they chose.

They were concentrating on the placement of things not just on the outside such as windows or doors, but the inside such as labeling the doctor’s office that was on the second floor of a building while the pharmacy was on the first floor of that same building. They were also labeling things such as the number of windows, concentrating on the size of the building and being aware that a corner building took over two blocks not just one.

That same eagerness to match details from one “source” to the next continued on to the next step. After building with Legos, children sketched the same building in the neighborhood using colored pencils. I was very impressed with the work the children were doing. It was in this step that we started to see the creativity and the keen eye that each child had regarding their drawings and their structures. We started to see self-correction, two drawings of the same thing building but the focus was on completely different things, and even a three dimensionality that was staring to form within the children’s work.

We also noticed the importance of choosing different materials to represent these buildings. Building with Legos was limiting in how the children could represent their building since they can only snap together in specific ways, but once they were able to draw using colored pencils, we saw the details that were omitted or simply not as obvious in the Lego structures.

We were very pleased with how the building project was going and how open the children were to work with the materials that were given to them for these specific activities. In the next blog, there will be a shift from children working with the buildings in a concrete manner to an abstract manner and using materials that will allow this.

The possibility of a building project began by following children’s interests and things they noticed and pointed out during walks around the neighborhood. This included different types of buildings and specific details of these buildings such as the number of windows, stairs, a triangular roof versus a flat roof, arches, etc. Children were then taking this interest to the classroom by talking about these things and comparing their own houses and buildings that they lived in to the buildings that they saw on their walks. This interest in buildings was also represented in their daily play in things such as their journals, play dough, magnatiles, Legos, their block play, and even pretend play when they were pretending to be construction workers and “building a building from scratch” using large hollow blocks.

After discussing this with my teaching team and exploring the possibilities for math learning in this project, we decided to plan a building project using open-ended materials and breaking it down into ten sequential steps where each step was needed in order for the next step to happen. This project would also start with activities that were simple and straight forward and become a little more complex with each step. We knew that it would be a lot of work, but we were excited and committed to work together to make it happen!

The first step in our project was to go on a neighborhood walk with clipboards, card-stock and pencils. Children were invited to sketch a building of their choice and concentrate on a specific detail such as number of windows, stairs, roof, etc.

They had the opportunity to review their sketch with me and talk about the specific details in their sketch. This was a great opportunity me to work one on one with the child and model and encourage math language in their description of their building. We also discussed other possible concepts in their sketch such as quantity (number of windows and stairs), size (height and width), spatial awareness (positional words indicating location, direction and distance). The idea was not to have a perfect drawing, but for the child to be able to describe what they saw and what they drew.

In the next few blogs, I will talk about the rest of the steps of our building project and how the children were able to incorporate math at a basic level and reach a more complex level within their exploration of buildings.