Engineering Cars in Prekindergarten

by Beth Brennan
Director of Early Childhood Programs


Wood was cut and holes were drilled, all in preparation for a very special design project last week in our Pre-K class.  The children were challenged by their teachers to come up with designs for wooden vehicles that move.  Once the designs were in place, the students set out to sand, stack, build and glue pieces of wood together to make their cars.  Vocabulary like axles, wheels, and hub caps were incorporated in the building portion of the lesson. In projects like these, the process is as important as the end results; the children start with imagination, followed by the development of a plan, then trial and error. Once assembled, as you will see in this video, they had the opportunity to talk about their ideas and, best of all, test their vehicles.