Construction Race: a Letter & Number Active Learning Game!

Construction Race is an active learning game that uses lots of action, large muscles, and gross motor coordination to learn and review letters and numbers!

If you've been around here much, you know that I believe early education should feel a lot like play (check out this post to see some reasons why), and this game fits that philosophy perfectly!  It combines play, construction trucks, a construction theme, letters, numbers, and lots of active movement!  Set up takes less than five minutes, the supplies are common, every-day materials, and the game is a ton of fun...especially if you have big construction fans!

Here are the Simple Supplies:

* paper

* crayons

* die/dice

* construction truck (optional, but LOADS of fun!!)

* rocks

And the Easy How To:

First, Set-Up:  Choose 2-6 letters you're working on and draw them on sheets of paper, one letter per page.  Choose numbers 1-6 and write them, much smaller, in the corner of each page.  See the main image at the top of this post for examples.  I let my kids help choose the letters and which letter got which number.

Set the numbers up 5-6 feet apart with a rock on each page to keep it from blowing away.  Put a pile of rocks 5-20 feet away.

Next, The Game:

Version 1: (for younger children, more simple, less competitive):  Explain that there are ___ construction sites.  We had an H-site, an A-site, a Y-site, and an R-site.  Each site wants to get 12 rocks so they can build a tower, but the truck can only carry two at a time.  Work with your child to get enough rocks to each site to build the towers.  Frequently use the letters you've chosen.  This version does not need numbers written on the pages.

Version 2: (for slightly folder children, combines more skills, can become competitive):  Explain that there are ___ construction sites.  We had an H-site, an A-site, a Y-site, and an R-site.  Each site wants to get 12 rocks so they can build a tower, but the truck can only carry two at a time.  Also, the truck can only deliver to one site at a time, so you will have to roll a die to see which letter gets the rocks.  Let your child start. On his turn, he will:

1- Roll the die, count the dots, and determine which letter matches.  In our game, every time a 4 was rolled, the Y-site received rocks.  Our kids loved rolling the dice across the driveway...it was so much more freeing than in the living room or on the kitchen table where we usually play dice games!

2- Take the dump truck to the rock quarry, load up two rocks, and deliver them to the letter.

3- The first letter to get to 12 wins!  I like that this game has the letters racing, and not the actual children...though, each of our kiddos picked a favorite letter to cheer for!

4- You can keep playing until all the construction sites have enough rocks for a tower, or stop when one wins.  Build a tower!  If your children are still in the mood, play again.  If they're done, clean up!

Here are a few of our action shots!

At the "quarry" picking up rocks:

Delivering rocks to the A construction site:

Rocks piling up at the Y, A, and H construction sites:

And that's it!  A super easy, construction game to learn or review letters or numbers!  Let me know how it works for you...I hope you love it!

I am also super excited to be joining with the Inspired Treehouse today as they begin a series all about active learning!!  It is exactly the kind of education I love most for my preschoolers, and I can't wait to see everything that gets shared during the next few weeks!  Be sure to check out the landing page here to keep up with more active learning ideas!

I may share at any of these parties!



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