Engineers Week Lesson for Preschoolers

National Engineers Week is an excellent time to introduce people (especially little ones) to engineering.  I volunteered to organize some activities at Joy's preschool and we had so much fun!  I created a basic poster with simple pictures and talked about some easy-to-understand elements of engineering.

Engineers use math and science to solve problems.
Engineers build things that GO!  We pretended to be airplanes and trains.  The kid's favorite was pretending that we were riding a roller coaster.
Engineers make electricity.  We talked about how great it is to have lights that work and running water.
Engineers improve the earth.  We talked about what kids of crops grow on farms and how some engineers help farmers grow more of the food we love.
Engineers build things that help people.  We played a quick game of London Bridge with a partner and talked about buildings and doctor's tools.

Some of these applications are a bit of a stretch, but engineering really is very far-reaching.  I believe it was a smashing success because every child raised their hand when asked "who wants to be an engineer when they grow up?"