Before embarking on fieldwork exercises, you might want to help your children become more familiar with different building components, and the architectural terms for these parts. Children are naturally curious and observant. Once they are able to assign a specific name to different architectural features, they will begin to understand the function of individual details or components on buildings, and realize how each feature contributes to the building's appearance and historical style.

To become more comfortable scrutinizing and describing buildings, children can refer to the Illustrated Glossary of Architectural Terms. To test their new vocabulary, they can then download the Building Details worksheet (PDF format). (Building Details Answer Key)