Homeschool Posts

Friday, August 29, 2008

Building Bridges...and Knocking Them Down

Yesterday we did some bridge building. Here's fun bridge resource:

Bridges! Amazing Structures to Design Build & Test (A Kaleidoscope KidsTM Book) by Carol A Johman and Elizabeth J. Rieth---We borrowed this from our local library.

This book is full of activities to explain to kids the different forces that act on bridges and different kinds of bridges. Some of the activities are very physical (like using tug-o-war to illustrate balancing push and pull forces) and some are more scientifically quantifiable (like comparing the load of various paper bridges with coins or paperclips...see the pics).

Everyone loved this! My biggest challenge was keeping the little ones from putting more coins on the bridge without counting them (Peter was especially enthusiastic). Our winning bridge was an arch with a corrugated (fan folded) deck over top of it. It held 13 quarters, 36 pennies, 41 dimes and 7 nickels before it collapsed (I can't imagine how many paperclips that would have been)...I had to borrow some coins from Mary!

1 comment:

  1. I am laughing so hard from David's face in all the photos! He is such a ham!


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