This week our global adventure has brought us to Italy, home of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a man-made wonder of the world.
As an Experience Early Learning (EEL) Blogger, I receive the EEL Preschool Curriculum in exchange for my honest opinions and authentic stories about our experiences using the curriculum. All opinions and thoughts are completely my own.
Literacy
Each month, Experience Early Learning sends us several books. Our book of the month, Wonder Around the World, was the perfect introduction to our Pisa study. I love that this is a non-fiction book and can easily be used each day to talk about that day’s global adventure!
Gross Motor Play: Leaning Friends
My teacher guide had some excellent activities for the day. After reading about the Leaning Tower of Pisa, we practiced leaning and tried not to fall. The kids leaned sideways, forward, and backward. The smiles, laughs, and falls were all big!
We sang this to the tune of “London Bridge” and the kids loved it:
Sideways leaning/ Will you fall, will you fall, will you fall?
Sideways leaning/ Will you fall?/ Now stand up straight.
We also used the words “Forward leaning…” and “Backward leaning…”
Math and Reasoning: Tower Building
After lunch, I set up a tower building game with blocks, our pocket cube, and cube number cards. You could easily use a foam die. I had each child roll the cube and then gather that number of blocks. We had 3 children playing and their tallest tower ended up being 14 blocks! They really enjoyed this and seeing what kind of towers each one built. I loved seeing their creativity!
Creative Art: Tower Building
As I set up our Invitation to Create: Towers Building, Jesus’ words in Matthew 7: 24-27 rang in my head.
24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
I shared with the kids this Scripture and we talked about how important it was to build on the rock, both physically and mentally. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is a perfect example of what happens when you don’t… your whole house/life/ being can crumble when you are not built on Him.
It was a great little lesson to talk about before building our towers. I presented the kids with the materials Experience Early Learning sent us: cornstarch noodles, toothpicks, and the picture of the Tower Pisa. I gave them each a Styrofoam bowl and had a bowl with a damp cloth in it to act like glue for the cornstarch noodles. They couldn’t wait to get their hands in all the goodies and build their own towers.
6 year old 
3 year old 
3 year old
My 6 year old kept tearing her tower down and rebuilding it. She even commented that her toothpicks were like the roots of a tree holding her tower to the ground. The three year old boys were having the time of their lives stabbing holes with the toothpicks and playing with their noodles. I loved how all their towers turned out!
I wished I had this much fun learning about the Leaning Tower of Pisa when I was younger!
Don’t miss our last global adventure post later this weekend and look out as we go on a Space Exploration next month with our Experience Early Learning box!
