masking tape strips on our unit blocks encouraged tower building. i turned one of our mirrors over to give a hard cement-colored surface.

we collected cartons and boxes for making our own skyscrapers.

it looked like christmas eve watching ms. vilia wrap all the cartons with manila paper.

then the children cut and glued windows in as straight of rows as possible .

we poked skewers in the top using tape on the end as radio antennas (and as an attempt to avoid getting eyes poked out).

we introduced the concept of a “story” being a book but also being the floor of a building or house.

this project was strips of paper (with windows pre-drawn by me and photocopied) that were glued together. preschoolers could choose to make their skyscraper have as many stories as they like. some children (like my own) stopped after the second story.

the children’s skyscrapers were correlated with their ages. i didn’t expect that. the younger ones simply stopped sooner and got back to work time (free choice time in the classroom). the pre-k kids stayed the longest.

they would run up and down the hall getting more paper strips and glue. we had to make more copies twice. they were counting their stories over and over.

i think there was succes for some in making their skyscraper taller than they are.