Construction Week at Daycare

Ok... so Lisa is still laughing at me now and saying just go to bed! I've just spent a couple of hours printing off pictures from the construction visits I've made to the Art Building project I'm working on. This week is "Construction" week at daycare and so Miles' teachers asked if I could bring in some plans or other things related to construction for them to "show and share" since I am involved in this stuff as an architect. I was excited about this from the beginning - thinking about all the "neat" things I could bring in for them to look at... So I started printing off photos and making copies of plans.... Then it began to dawn on me (with Lisa's help of course) that I don't have the faintest clue about what a 4-year-old would really be interested in. So I had to change my approach... What exactly will be the topic for the week? Construction? And what will these youngster's get out of a bunch of plans of a building that most adults won't even understand.

Construction week has made me stop and think about just how abstract this whole architecture business really is.... I mean - who really understands a plan anyway... it's the building in the end after it finally gets built before anyone really starts to understand these things. So now I have a bunch of pictures... starting with digging out the site for the foundations where what I realize now is that the kids will really just be interested in the "diggers" and bulldozers and the big hole in the ground....Anyway.... who cares about footings and foundations right? No one ever sees these things anyway right? Well, I have them anyway for Miles to take along with the pictures of the structural steel (the bones of the building is a good start I suppose for explaining what structural steel is to a 4-year-old right?) - Welding, trusses, cranes, concrete plank and more pictures of guys in "cherry pickers" hoisting the prefab walls into place. I even went so far as to create an index to the photos so that the teachers can read what the heck the picture is about. I can almost see the kid's eyes glazing over in wonderment now - the fidgeting of boredom.... the poke in the back to the kid in the front row from the kid in the back row who's not the teacher's pet. Miles doesn't have a front row seat. So I'm counting on him keeping the interest peaked with phases like " look at those anchor bolts and base plates... they look terrible.... how are they ever going to get that structural frame plumbed up?" Yeah right.... Miles' will be poking the kid in front of him I can tell.... So how do you explain what an architectural plan is to a kid anyway? I guess that's something I should sit down with Miles and learn too. I just hope that hard hat of mine is enough to keep him from getting picked on because he has such a nerdy dad! Best of Luck - Miles !