Building Big Ideas: Engineering Curiosity at Far Hills

At Far Hills, STEAM learning begins with opportunities to explore, question, build, and discover. In Kindergarten and Grade 1, students worked with KEVA planks—simple, uniform wooden blocks that became tools for exploring engineering, physics, mathematics, creativity, and problem-solving.

Building Skills at Every Grade Level

Although both grades worked with the same materials, each activity was designed to meet students at their developmental level.

Kindergarteners explored how KEVA planks can be stacked, aligned, and balanced without glue or connectors. As they created towers, walls, and geometric designs, students developed spatial awareness and fine motor skills while discovering how gravity, balance, and weight distribution affect a structure.

Grade 1 students built on these concepts through more structured engineering challenges. Working within specific constraints, they experimented with smaller foundations, bridges, and elevated ramps, encouraging them to plan, test their ideas, and make adjustments based on what they observed.

Learning Through the Design Process

When a structure comes tumbling down, students learn to see the collapse not as a failure, but as useful information. What caused it to fall? What could they change? How could they make their next design stronger?

Through this process, students begin practicing the Engineering Design Cycle—Plan, Build, Test, Redesign—while developing persistence, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication.

These early experiences lay the foundation for STEAM learning throughout a student's Far Hills education. As students progress, they build upon these skills through explorations of measurement, force and motion, coding, robotics, engineering, 3D printing, and design.

By introducing engineering concepts beginning in Kindergarten, Far Hills helps students develop the curiosity, confidence, and problem-solving skills they will carry into increasingly sophisticated learning experiences.