Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The Wise Man Built His House Upon The Rock - Activity For Preschoolers

We pulled this activity from Let's Try It Out With Towers and Bridges, a Hands-On Early-Learning Science Activity book by Seymore Simon, and Nicole Fauteux. I hope to post more about this terrific series, later in the week. But, as we were learning about the importance of a strong foundation, for buildings, using play dough, and straws, I couldn't help but think of the parable of the wise man, who built his house on the rock, and the foolish man, who built on the sand (Matthew 7:24-27).

First we set up a tower. In our case it was three toilet paper tubes, that had been taped together for a telescope, some time before.


Just the tiniest breeze could knock it over, like a tree with no roots.


Once it was planted into a lump of play dough, even a much stronger wind couldn't knock it down.


Then we tried building a tower with straws, and play dough, again with a strong foundation.

When the storm came, it stood solid.



But when we took the foundation away...


...and our "foolish man's house went SPLAT!" Then, of course, we had to sing the song. Don't know the wise man/foolish man song? You can find the complete lyrics here, and listen to the first verse, and chorus, here.


And, you can find a printable coloring page, to go along with the lesson, here.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

6 comments:

Christy Killoran said...

This is a great activity. We have a game that requires you to build a pyramid (the game is called Zimbbos) and I have been trying to explain to R that you have to build a foundation so choose your pieces wisely, but it hasn't sunk in. I think I will try this activity with her!

Debbie said...

I love the simplicity of this activity for teaching "A Wise Man Built His House Upon The Rock"

Ticia said...

I love this. We did this one time with a house of cards, but this would work better for preschool.

Fairion said...

I love the mixture of science and religion. And simple fun activities are the best. We will be trying this.

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

This sounds like a very interesting book! I was also thinking about extending it into pyramid shape, but I tried to explain advantages of pyramid shape before and it didn't think in yet.

Justbecauseitmakesmesmile said...

Thank you so much for this idea.
I'll be using tomorrow in my Sunday school lesson!