This month, as part of our follow?up learning from January’s story The Three Little Pigs, we were delighted to welcome two builders into school to speak to the children about their job.
A huge thank you to Odhran O’H’s grandfather and uncle, who arrived with cement, sand, large buckets, water, trowels, and other real building equipment to set up an outdoor construction area for the children.
They showed the children how to mix the ingredients needed to make cement, talked about it is important in building strong structures, and demonstrated how a spirit level is used. They also helped the children learn and remember the names of building tools, such as a trowel.
The children were fascinated as they watched the cement being mixed and the blocks being built. Many children explored the mixed cement using sticks and described it using fantastic vocabulary such as mushy, wet, and sticky.
The builders kindly left several small cement tubs for us, allowing the children to observe the changes over time as the mixture hardened. When the children returned to school the following Monday, they were excited to discover that the cement had become solid.
Since then, the children have been using the set cement in their art and craft activities, creating brick rubbing impressions, scraping the surface with pencils to develop early writing skills, and using their hands and tools to explore texture and pattern.
A huge thank you to our visitors for supporting and enriching the children’s learning. It was an excellent hands on experience that connected storytelling, construction, science, and creativity.
