Continuing its legacy of providing early childhood design education, the BSA Foundation aims to share architecture in age-appropriate ways and build greater awareness of architecture with students as early as kindergarten. To bring ideas about architecture and city-making into local classrooms, BSA partners with Boston Public Schools (BPS) and Cambridge Public Schools (CPS) to share curriculum and with its network of architects to bring the lessons to life.

Piloted during the 2017-2018 school year, the BSA's Kindergarten curriculum provides a two-part interactive lesson to participating classrooms, introducing students to architecture and planning through simple shapes and building types. The curriculum fits within a 10-week unit on construction and the larger year-long Focus on K-2 curriculum developed by BPS and utilized by CPS. Through a guided presentation and hands-on activity, students learn about the various places that make up their city before a hands-on design activity bridging individual student designs with a discussion on neighborhood planning.

BSA's Kindergarten program began with 15 classrooms (2018) and now reaches upwards of 100 classrooms. Through virtual and hybrid visits (2020-2022), the architect-guided curriculum and volunteer architect visits grew to serve 120+ classrooms across the region. As in-person learning resumed, the BSA scaled the program through a teacher-guided curriculum pilot (2023) and materials provided to all district classrooms to supplement the volunteer pairing program.

In 2026, all participating Boston and Cambridge Public School classrooms have the option to participate in the full program. Classrooms will host their paired volunteer architect for the Kindergarten lesson on architecture as well as for a visit to assist directly in the Our Boston/Our Cambridge project. Volunteers will engage with their paired classroom through the two main visits and return to see completed projects during the exhibition(s).

By providing additional learning opportunities and connections with local architects, the BSA aims to provide a consistent throughline of architecture for students and develop early awareness of the built environment to some of Boston's youngest residents.

2026

Dates
January-May 2026

Location
Visits: Boston and Cambridge classrooms

Program

Type
Custom curriculum
Classroom workshops

Grade Level
Kindergarten

Timeframe
2017-present

Timeline
November: Classroom application
December-January: Volunteer application
February: Classroom pairing and visit preparation
March: Classroom visits #1-2
May: Our Boston/Our Cambridge Celebration(s) and Exhibition(s)

Collaborators

Partners
Boston Public Schools Early Childhood Department
Cambridge Public Schools Kindergarten Department

Volunteers
Local architects and designers

Volunteers

Sharing your knowledge and interest in architecture/design with local students is essential to building early awareness of built environment. Thank you to our volunteers, both past and present, for your time and energy dedicated to this program. Volunteer shifts for this year's program have completed. Email Taylor Johnson, [email protected] to get involved in future opportunities.

Support

Thank you to those who have generously supported the development of this program. The program's growth and development were supported by the Cummings Foundation (2020-2022), while the launch of the teacher-guided curriculum and materials to all Boston Public School classrooms was supported by HAUS (2023).

To support this and other K-12 programs, consider donating to the BSA Foundation.

Learn more about K-12 Design Education