To help students visualize changes that occur in the palliative care patient, a building block activity was designed for the nursing classroom. The goal of this activity is to demonstrate how the patient copes with changes, while compensating and restructuring related to disease progression and symptom management. In preparation for the class session, a large set of building blocks, for example, a Jenga set, is brought to the classroom and stacked upright. Students then brainstorm related to topics such as loss, concerns, and goals and write down a priority patient need. The need may be related to a physiological or psychosocial issue. During the class session, the students take turns choosing a patient need, reading it out loud to the class, and stating an appropriate nursing intervention. If they are unsure, they collaborate with classmates. This leads to a focused discussion of that topic. One of the students then selects a block from the stacked set and places it on the top of the pile. The process of selecting a block provides a visual representation of the foundational loss that may occur as patients cope with a variety of concerns related to a chronic illness and how they adapt to the loss while still maintaining overall function.