Dirt Pile Play

You don't always need to come up with complicated party game ideas.
Kids love just playing in the dirt. Fill up a kiddie pool or sandbox with
 dirt and give them all kinds of construction vehicles, small shovels,
 buckets, etc. to play with. Another cool idea is to hide a number of miniature construction
 toys to resemble Bob's machine friends in the dirt and have the kids dig for them.

Sand Play

The sandbox is a perfect place to explore construction vehicles. 
Your child can pick up long sticks or Lincoln Logs with a crane, move sand
 around with a dump truck and make roads in the sand with a bulldozer.

Metal Search

Bury small metal nuts, bolts, and washers in a tub of cedar shavings (available at pet supply
 stores).  Encourage little ones to use magnets to collect the metal items from among the cedar
 shavings.  Then have them assemble the nut, bolt, and washer sets.  How many sets did you find.

Block Area Fun

I put paper brick blocks into the block center and then added hard hats and gloves.
 I added dump trucks, bull dozers and cranes. The kids loved this!

Building roads using blocks.  (the cardboard  bricks are the favorite here)

When we do construction, we use all the blocks that we have available.
 (Legos, wooden blocks, waffle blocks and Lincoln Logs) We construct a town with the blocks,
 using our trucks to move the blocks and cranes to build up. We wear construction hats.

Provide construction materials, such as legos and blocks to build houses.

Add gears and ramps to block area.

Nuts & Bolts

Provide an assortment of nuts and bolts for the children to twist together.
 Offer a variety of sizes and styles for the children to match up, and offer bolts that
 vary in length.  Challenge the children to screw the nuts all the way onto the bolts.
ADULT SUPERVISION REQUIRED!!
Nuts and bolts are a choking hazard to very young children.

Bob's Rock Toss

A fun construction game  is to make "rock" bean bags from old grey socks
 (fill them up with beans or rice, and sow them closed or use a rubber band). Use a couple
of Tonka dump trucks and have the kids try to toss their "rocks" into the dump truck.

Rock Paper Mache Fun

Blow up a balloon and add one layer of paper mache.  Pop the balloon and  scrunch the
 sides some to look like a rock.  Add more paper mache--You may  have to add small pieces
 of crumpled paper here and there to make it look more like a rock.  Fill with baggies of goodies
 (pop rocks, rock candy, those pebble shaped jelly beans, etc--maybe some small construction vehicles) 
 Place the 'rock' on the floor and let the children crush it with toy hammers.

Marshmallow Building

Materials Needed:
Marshmallows
Toothpicks

Directions:
Allow your children to design and then build a building using marshmallows and toothpicks.

Shovel It

Put a large amount of cotton balls in a large bowl. Then
 blindfold two players and have them scoop the cotton balls
 from one bowl to the other using a small plastic shovel.

Clay Fun

Pounding brown clay with the plastic hammers.

Hammer & Nails

Supply large styro-foam blocks, golf tees and plastic hammers for the children
 to experiment with. Cover styro-foam with burlap and secure it underneath.
 Make some outline pictures and let them pound a picture.

Popsicle Building

First discuss the properties of some buildings. Sides, roofs, doors, windows, etc. Show
 them pictures of different kinds of buildings asking about the different types of roofs, etc.
 Then let children glue Popsicle sticks onto paper to make building shapes. They may want
 to have smaller sizes so let them break them in half. Have paint and small brushes to let
 them paint their constructed "buildings." Then ask them to tell you about the buildings they
created and write down what they say to add to the project. These projects always turn
out so interesting and original.

Under Construction

Stock your art center with craft glue and items suitable for building, such as boxes, craft sticks,
 toothpicks, and scraps of cardboard.  If desired, also provide decorative materials, such as paint,
 wallpaper samples, and sequins.  Encourage children at this center to use the craft items to
 create three-dimensional houses or buildings.  For a custom finish, invite youngsters
 to use the decorative items to further personalize their buildings.

Apartment House

Invite each child to make one shoebox dollhouse.  You can send a note home for the
 project to be done at home or at school.  Then when all the shoebox houses are complete,
 stack them up one on top of the other and secure them with tape to create an apartment building.

Blueprints

Get actual blueprints and point out to the children the lines on them that indicate walls,
 windows, doors, etc. Point out that this is what architects (new word) use when they are
 planning buildings before they are built. Then at the art table have large pieces of blue paper with
 white crayons or white colored pencils and rulers. Let them go to town making their own blueprints.

Architects

Have the children be "architects" (talk about what this word means first) and
 have them design their own building, skyscraper, house, etc... out of marshmallows and
 toothpicks. The creations can get to be very imaginative. It's great to see what they come up with!

Graham Cracker House

Build a house out of cardboard. Have Your children put graham cracker roofs and siding on
 it by using frosting. You can also provide them with additional frosting to decorate the house.

Toolbox Tunes

Invite your little workers to create their own musical masterpieces with some simple tools of
 the trade.  To prepare, stock a toolbox with items such as wrenches, small blocks of wood,
PVC pipes, nuts and bolts, and any other tools with unique noise producing potential.  Put the
toolbox a few hard hats and recording of upbeat music in a center.  Then invite a child to turn on the
 music and use the tools, hard hats, and even the toolbox to gently experiment with sounds and rhythm.

Funnels Are Fun

Materials Needed:
play sand, small pebbles, toy trucks, funnels, string, small shovels

Directions:
Fill a sensory table or sturdy plastic pool with clean play sand. Add some small
 pebbles for texture interest. Park a collection to toy trucks in this tub. Then hang some
 funnels from the ceiling, so that they are suspended just above the sand.
Toss in a few small shovels and let your little ones loose.

Pipes and Pebbles

Materials Needed:
aquarium pebbles, various sizes of plastic tubing and PVC pipe

Directions:
Pour a few bags of aquarium pebbles into a tub. Then supply
 different sizes of plastic tubing and PVC pipe. Plink, plink, plunk!

Pipes and Pebbles and Puddles

Materials Needed:
aquarium pebbles,
 various sizes of plastic tubing and PVC pipe,
 plastic soda bottle funnels,
 water and food coloring

Directions:
Set up a center similar to the one above, but this time add water. A few drops of food
 coloring will make it all the more interesting. And toss in some homemade funnels.

Building with Wood Scraps

Supply the children with wood scraps and miscellaneous
 shapes and a lot of glue and see what they come up with.

Building with Toothpicks & Gumdrops

If your children are old enough to work with toothpicks supply them
 with a bowl of gumdrops and some toothpicks to construct with.

Building with Straws & Tape

If you have older children, they will love this next project.  A few years ago my family and I
 attended a seminar on parenting.  One of the activities they did was supply each family with
 several boxes of straws and rolls of tape.  Our assignment was to build the tallest straw
 structure possible with in the time frame (I think it was 10-15 minutes).  The structure
 had to be free standing and could not touch any surface other than the floor. 

Constructing Huge Vehicles

We have a building set called No Ends (purchased through Discount School
 Supply). We construct huge vehicles for the children to actually sit in.

Tool Feely Box

Purchased some cheap plastic tools at our local dollar store then I took pictures of them
 with my digital camera and made them into laminated cards.  I hole punched them and
 put the cards and put them on a ball and chain keychain.  Then I sewed a tool box using
 felt and a product called timtex (you could just get a cheap tool box) Now we use it as
 a feely box.  I use the cards as prompts so the kids can see the tool if they need help
 identifying it.  Other times I show them a card and ask if they can feel and find it in the tool box.