1st Grade Builds With Solids

First grade has been investigating solids.  They have learned that solids keep their shape and can be described by properties: flexible, rigid, opaque, transparent, smooth, rough, hard and soft.   

For this investigation, 1st graders became engineers.  The classes knew a lot about engineering and agreed that engineers build things.  We also found out that engineers need to know about the properties of solids in order to choose the appropriate materials for each object being built.

The challenge...building a tower with our 7 solids (fabric, wire, tube, triangle, screw, wooden block and craft stick), foil, 2 cups, 2 cardboard squares, a straw and a rubber band.  Oh, and no tape, scissors or glue!

A very stable tower!

Measuring the tower just as it starts to fall!

Trying to use all the solids for the tower.

Working together.

After building the tower, it's time to draw it.

My tower won't fall over.

It get's frustrating when your tower falls.

How tall is my tower?

Working together you get double the supplies!

1st Graders Become Engineers!

1st graders have been using their knowledge about properties of solids to build bridges and towers! Each structure uses different materials that have distinct uses based on their properties. We discussed the purpose of a bridge (to cross over something) and decided that there had to be room for something (car, boat, train, people) to pass under the bridge. Each student had the same amount of supplies and....no glue, scissor or tape could be used!

Some people worked on their own.

Some people worked together.

This bridge is long and goes around the corner!

The rubber bands can be tricky to use!

A tunnel bridge.

A covered bridge.

A boat with a red sail to pass under!

This bridge even has an on/off ramp!

A slim bridge.

Next class, new challenge! Building and measuring a stable tower! We also had a new material to work with - aluminum foil! This time we draw our tower in our journals and measured how tall it was.

We have to use two rulers to measure how tall our tower is.

I made my tower lean like the leaning tower of Pisa.

I made the Eiffel Tower.