After spending a few weeks building houses with legos, we have shifted to straws and connectors and the children have been very busy. The different colored straws measure different lengths…Green is the longest, yellow is the shortest, and red falls in the middle. Over time, their houses have grown in complexity, as have their conversations. It’s remarkable to listen in as they paint a picture of their design and their thinking. What follows are 4 vignettes from the past week…
“I made a green with a red, yellow, red!”-NICO
After lining them up next to one another, Nico declares,
“Oh no! It’s actually longer!”
“Look how long mine is! Look how long mine is!”-SPENCER
“It’s called fat. When it’s sideways and it’s kinda big.”-NICO
Britton discovered house building by way of numbers and letters.
“Look! I made a 4!”
“Now it’s a 8!”
“I made a L. It’s a L…It’s a roof…Let’s make a house…All I need is a square!”
Spencer had just taken a great deal of time building a house with several rooms and a slanted roof. Upon his completion of the house, he begins to describe it out loud.
“Living Room, kitchen…no. Kitchen, living room, bathroom, ‘nother living room, porch.”-SPENCER
Tell me again, the porch has a different type of roof?
“No, it doesn’t have a roof.”-SPENCER
So where do they sleep?
“Well, ah, they sleep right in these, in the spaces where there’s a slant there (referring to the slant on the roof).”-SPENCER
“‘Cause this is the upstairs.”-SPENCER
“But how do they get up the upstairs?”-NICO
“Um, they just take an elevator.”-SPENCER
“A elevator?!?”-NICO
“I’ve went in a house that has an elevator.”-SPENCER
Where is the elevator that’s in this house?
“It’s right here, right here, right here, and right here.” (pointing to the first floor rooms that all have upstairs bedrooms directly above them)-SPENCER
So every room has an elevator?
“Yeah, ‘cause every part of the upstairs has a bedroom.”-SPENCER
Whatever good things we build, end up building us.
