PreK students apply lessons learned from neighborhood walks


Posted: November 3, 2022

Every fall, prekindergarten students at early childhood and early learning centers in Newport News Public Schools study buildings and the materials used to make them.

At Watkins Early Childhood Center, students collected pictures and learned about construction techniques and building parts.

In their classrooms, students collected and compared pictures of buildings, created their own pictures and collages and made three-dimensional models from craft sticks and blocks.

This preparation made their culminating experience—a walk in the neighborhood around their school—even more exciting.

Students looked for real-world examples of the building parts and materials they had learned about and excitedly pointed out chimneys, bricks and upper floors of the houses and other structures they saw on their walk.

Tiffany Brewer, instructional assistant, said, "We had a blast walking around the neighborhood near our school as we celebrated the conclusion of our buildings unit."

"Our Watkins Stars pointed out a variety of things they noticed—that some houses are one story and some houses have two stories, that many of our neighborhood houses are made of bricks (which we discussed while reading The Three Little Pigs), and that houses have windows, doors, and sometimes garages and chimneys."

Back in their classrooms, the students shared pictures and made lists of all the interesting things they saw on their walk while the memory was fresh.