Plenty of the common construction tools are available in smaller versions, and we recommend that you collect these items as they offer purposeful movements and actions that cannot be replicated by plastic toys.
Your benefit-risk assessments will need to be robust and your choices focused on the needs, interests and abilities of each child.
in the moment
Much of children’s play outdoors encompasses construction and design technology – we’re endlessly fascinated by children’s need to physically represent their ideas. The play can be enriched by introducing STEM words and construction materials and tools. At Dandelion Education’s outdoor nurseries, there are no ‘toys’ and children are encouraged to make their own. A generous range and quantity of tools and materials, along with staff confident in supporting children to use them, means the children can decide what they want to create, and how. Make sure you and your team are confident with the tools you have available; keep an extensive scrap store corner outdoors, where children’s play can be inspired by what they find there, as well as extended by it. We highly recommend visits to your local tip, car boot sales, charity shops and neighbours’ skips.
quick wins
Look at pictures and video clips of bridges. What similar features can children spot on each bridge? Which designs do they like, and why?
- Test how a bridge works: two children stand opposite each other and reach their hands forwards and up into the air. Ask them to press their palms together (or clasp if that’s easier) and lean towards each other: they are carrying the weight of the ‘bridge’. Try to move one step away – the pressure on their hands will increase as they get further apart and eventually they won’t be able to lean at all, and will fall over! The ‘span’ of their bridge became too long for the ‘weight’ of their bridge.
- Using resources you have to hand, invent a bridge design to go over a ‘river’ of paper or fabric. Scale it up using hollow blocks, crates and timber planks. Can children create a bridge that’s strong enough to bear their weight? What changes will they need to make to create a longer or higher bridge?
simple construction projects
Buildings (like trees) need a strong and robust base in order to withstand weather, earthquakes and even deliberate attacks. Foundations are a crucial element and the parts of building above ground have to be connected – with mortar, rivets, welding, screws, and more.- Read Eugene Trivizas’s The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, then construct windproof/pigproof shelters using branches, logs, leaves and string. Make another using hollow blocks, crates and planks – which is the strongest? Examine the materials your setting’s building is made from.
- Source a couple of dozen real bricks and build walls with them. Try different patterns of laying the bricks on top of each other to find the strongest ‘bond’. If your setting’s building is made of bricks, look at the pattern and see if you can replicate it.
- Build wobbly towers – on a piece of plywood, create a structure as tall as you can, using any materials children can scavenge nearby, such as sticks and stones. Shake the plywood base and watch what happens. How can children make a stable structure? Think about a strong, wide base, joining materials together, using heavier materials and ones that link or slot together. Keep experimenting and trying the ‘earthquake’ technique to see how you’re getting on.
- Collect pebbles and stones and try to balance them on top of one another. Stone stacking is a popular pastime and great for children’s pincer grips and hand-eye co-ordination. What factors influence whether the stones will balance or not? Build and rebuild, encouraging children to improve their attempts based on what they’ve learned from their other projects.
continuous provision – putting it all together
The objective here is to support creativity, problem-solving and bodyful, movement-based learning. Playing and working together, children will refine their motor skill and their ability to risk-assess their actions.
- Timber: offcuts and scraps, blocks, balsa wood, large and small section battens, planks and boards. Drill holes in some of these so children can thread rope, string or wire through to connect the pieces.
- Real bricks and building blocks, paving blocks and tiles.
- Stones, pebbles, gravel, rocks.
- Sticks, logs, tree slices and ‘cookies’, twigs, leaves and bark – drill wide holes through some to allow children to connect. If you have pampas, bullrushes or other tall grasses, save them too.
- Bamboo canes.
- Clay, playdough, chalk chunks.
- Access to water – spray bottles, hosepipe, buckets and watering cans,
- Tent pegs and groundsheet pegs, plus a mallet and a peg remover.
- Cardboard and paper.
- Connectors: string, short lengths of rope, duct tape, coated garden wire, clothes pegs and heavy-duty pegs, bungee cords.
- In addition, children should have managed access to large nails and screws, dowels and pegs, wood glue, sandpaper/sanding blocks and tools.
Enhancement – exploring tools
Real tools have weight and power, so they do need to be used under supervision. Toy tools can be useful too, though; in the role-play area, children can practise the movements needed to handle tools – for example, sawing and hammering.
- Hammer – short stubby hammers and thin ‘pin’ hammers.
- Stubby screwdrivers with crossheads and flat heads.
- Dressmakers’ retractable tapes. Supply a range of other measuring tools – 30cm rulers, 1m sticks, right angles, etc.
- Sanding blocks are much easier for small hands to use than sandpaper.
- Other tools – bowsaws and junior hacksaws, spanners for nuts and bolts, spirit levels, bradawls, palm drills, peelers.
- Proper workstations for using tools – a workbench or dedicated table, a saw horse and a step stool are useful additions for construction projects.
- Suppliers such as Muddy Faces and Cosy sell toolbelts for children.
planning ahead – managing tools
Risk Benefit Assessment is an approach to risk assessment that focuses on enabling challenging activities to take place, rather than preventing them. You can download a copy of our risk tool from the Play Learning Life website: https://www.plloutdoors.org.uk/ey-advice. The Health and Safety Executive’s statement on striking a balance in children’s play is at: www.tinyurl.com/HSEplay.
- Keep tools away from curious hands when you aren’t able to supervise; allocate a tool station, with children asking before taking items.
- Choose tools that are the right size and weight for children.
- Explore safety and personal protective equipment, together. Look at pictures and video of construction workers in action.
- Ask if they’d like to wear a glove on their helping hand, or eye protection (they may not need it, but children often enjoy wearing PPE anyway).
- Demonstrate safe use each time you run a session using tools – remind children how to keep themselves and their friends safe; encourage them to explain tool use themselves.
- Maintain your tools: rusty saws, dull blades and blunt drills won’t work effectively and will lead to frustration and possibly injury.
Deconstruction is also huge fun – once children are familiar with tools, provide them with objects to take apart, such as an old laptop or TV, small kitchen appliance or a shelf unit.
