Housing development construction site

by Anne-Marie G
(Bowie, MD)

We live in a suburban area where new housing developments are constantly going up. Our homeschool co-op group arranged a tour of one such development under construction.

The construction manager took us to three houses, all similar models but each at a different stage of construction. He did a splendid job of explaining the work that had been done at each step, and why some tasks have to be done before others. He also discussed different methods of building houses used in our area. The kids were impressed by how much infrastructure is hidden inside the walls, and they got a big kick out of seeing the underside of a bathtub. After the trip, I took my kids to the sales site so they could see a finished and decorated model house.

Arranging a trip like this depends basically on the goodwill of the developer. If one says no, try another. Our trip had fairly strict constraints on minimum age, ratio of kids to chaperones, etc., for safety reasons.