Building and Math
We love to build!
all of those little building activities done with younger children add up to something truly beautiful and innovative as they grow older.
We love math!
Building + math = fun.
Let's build some numbers together today!
We use our number cards that are made with sandpaper and we count out blocks to go with each one.
Here's a link to the video.
Division with blocks.
Using upside down letter tiles as number counters. We love stacking them and making fun shapes.
We're doing division problems today. Dividing big numbers by 3 may seem intimidating at first, but if you have things to count and build with, it becomes fun!
Here's an explanation of what we did. Hopefully it's easy enough to understand.
Look at a division problem. It should have one big number and one little number.
What's the little number?
Draw that number of squares on your tabletop blackboard. We used a different color of chalk for each square.
What is your big number in the division problem? Count out that many tiles.
Put one of those tiles in a square. Put the next tile in a different square. Once every square has one, stack a second one on top of each. Keep going until you have used all of the tiles.
How many tiles are in each square? That's your answer!
Folding, Shapes, and building - with fractions!
Morning Table: fractions
What does a half feel like?
A quarter?
An eighth?
What can you build with these shapes?
Making quarters as we fold our wash cloths.
How many different ways can you fold it? How do you describe the shapes?
Can you build with them?
Sure, they might not look perfect in the cabinet when we put them away, but it's more fun this way.
Structural integrity and Force.
We found Jenga blocks today and decided to build, then destroy, and build again.
She wanted to knock a structure down with a domino-like line tumbling onto it. But her building was too strong. She eventually got it to fall down. Want to know how? She stacked the blocks on top of each other so they were twice as tall!
She kept building different structures to figure out different ways to make them stand up against the force of the tumbling blocks banging into them.
Do you feel like building?
Can you make something structurally strong?
The pattern she is building with is post and lintel. Do you want to learn more about this kind of construction?
Brittanica has an explanation that is easy to read for kids. Here's a link!
A Note on Big Words
"What is Structural Integrity, anyway? Are those NASA words?" I had to laugh as one of our friends asked this at a playtime.
Children intuitively push the limits of engineering. If we watch what they do and offer encouragement as they work, it becomes quite a beautiful thing to watch them grow and solve problems.
Encourage them to think about what they are doing, and help them to find new words to explain each little thing they get excited about.
Use big words with them. You can ease into the big words, but still use them. Show them that the simple things they can do can be described using big words. It makes them feel a surge of confidence. Help them to say those words. Break down the meanings. Show them that they are intelligent and capable.
Big words build confidence.
And you can build words, too! Here's a photo of a word we built with blocks.
Building Song
We like to sing while we build! Here is one little song that we made up about building.
What are we going to build today? Build today, build today. What are we going to build today? (an epic marble run).
How are we going to build today? Build today, build today. How are we going to build today? (With tubes and ramps and bases.)
Sing along with us as we build!
Here is a link to a recording on YouTube:
#jenga
#build
#engineering
LEGO
I started volunteering with a LEGO robotics club. We use the LEGO Education Spike Prime kits and do all sorts of fun and creative challenges with them.
Yesterday I noticed a giant neglected bin of giant generic blocks in the library and we found a way to incorporate them into our build. We planned to courses for our robots to navigate, but they turned into castle-inspired race tracks!
Here's a photo.
Have fun building. Get hands-on and have fun!
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