Engineering Explorers

"Come and look, come and look!" screams four-year-old Maggie. She is waving frantically, summoning us over with such joy that we know it must be something special.

Our gang of early learners rushes over to see Maggie's discovery. Almost in unison, as they behold her "found treasure," they come to a complete standstill—literally frozen in awe.

There before us—on this spontaneous engineering adventure—stands the most wonderful forest fort that we have ever seen!

Who lives here?" asks three-year-old Liam in a tremulous voice as he summons the courage to step closer.

"Can we go in?" Madison whispers, not sure that she really wants to.

Eventually, we do venture inside, and—just like that—our impromptu fort-engineering investigation begins. This sturdy structure has sparked wonder and curiosity in the children. We have a STEM adventure in the making!

Remember building forts when you were a kid? Hands-on learning enables young children to deepen their understanding of any concept. Before long, our early engineering explorers are making observations and analyzing the construction method used to build this fort—knowledge they will put to use later when they design and build their own.

After everyone has thoroughly examined the fort, we embark on the design phase of our engineering design process. This is science, technology, engineering, and math play that allows the learning to come naturally and at each child's own developmental level!

Perhaps best of all, this engineering marvel teaches the children that people in our community are creating beautiful spaces to be used and admired by all who encounter them.

But this fort is not the only one! One by one, the children encounter other structures created out of natural loose parts.

Our investigation continues. There are so many opportunities here for learning, creating, and team-building!

We share theories and form hypotheses about how many people worked on these structures. Some look more like sculptures than forts. How did the architects behind these structures get those huge branches up so high? We look at the bases and conclude that they were caused by a storm and not cut with a saw. How did the builders use them to stabilize their structures?

Over the past few years, some amazing forts and tree sculptures have been popping up in our local parks, and there's no better way to learn design and engineering basics than to spend a morning studying them.

We take photos of every fort we encounter to document our observations. After we return to the classroom, we will print them out and put them in a folder for reference when we design and build our own structures.

Engineering is all about designing, building, and trying out new ideas. It can be as complex as aerospace engineering or as simple as adding a few new sticks to a fort already in progress.

These activities all begin with a question. Today, the question was, "How did they do that?"

We realize that the forts we design and build won't look like these. We will use whatever materials we can find in our own play spaces. But our fort observations this morning have given the children the knowledge they need to get started.

Earlier this year, we discovered a forest fort shaped like a triangle (see photo below).

"I think this fort was started from that falling branch!" suggested Harper. 

This prompted a closer examination of the triangular fort. After careful observation, we determined that the sides of this fort were constructed with sticks of progressively shorter lengths—starting with the longest ticks leaning against the highest part of the fallen branch. We also noted that, if we chose longer sticks (which required us to increase the angle of the sticks), we could build a wider fort.

We gained a better understanding of measurement by estimating the length and width of the fort with a simple visual assessment. (Since we hadn't anticipated this engineering adventure, we hadn't packed any tape measures!)

After studying the fort in its original state, the children began to add branches to the structure. We always add a few sticks or branches to any fort we encounter.

This simple act of communal creation adds to the feeling of neighbors working together to build objects for everyone to enjoy—and empowers our youngest learners to become early engineering explorers by showing them that they really can't go wrong by adding a stick or two.

Our fort discoveries spark a discussion about how to design and engineer our own fort. Where should we place the door and windows? What shapes should we use? And how can we incorporate those shapes into our fort?

We look at two- and three-dimensional shapes and use visualization, spatial reasoning, and geometric modeling to solve our engineering problems.

We share and compare our ideas about angles, inclines, balance, and elevation. 

When young children learn through play, movement, and trial and error, the synapses in their brains fire like crazy, creating new neural connections and laying the foundation for deeper STEM investigations.

When we return to our early childhood center, the children begin to draw out their ideas, including the materials they will use.

The design and construction process involves inspiration and imagination, observation, and research—all of which we completed on our hike.

After the children complete their initial drawings, they begin to build their models. This involves testing and refining their original designs.

I give the children ample time to create and refine their models. Observing them at work, I can almost see the wheels turning in their developing brains as they solve their engineering problems one by one.

This is how to foster a love of engineering in early learners—and it was all inspired by an anonymous band of fort builders in our local parks and forests. I whisper a silent thank you to these forest architects for passing along the torch of inspiration as my early learners continue their engineering adventures!

If you would like to expand on this activity, Engineering Explorers has some great lesson plans ready for you to use in your classroom. Try our Build a House With Natural Loose Parts lesson plan to challenge your future engineers!