Balance While Building

Week of 5/12/14

Catie Stone & Charlene Hughes

            We were building on a board that was elevated last week. This week I had them use an even thinner building platform, a yard stick. This created more of a challenge for the children to build on because the platform was so thin. It was elevated between two wooden blocks, but was adjustable and removable.

            At first, the children would build on the yard stick and see how tall they build until the tower fell down. Connor would keep building higher and higher and testing the point in which his tower would fall. He was able to stack 8 blocks high on the yard stick. Braden seemed to be interested in stacking blocks that were the same. It appeared that he had this theory that different shaped blocks would stack different or balance different. He first used cylinder blocks and stacked three until they fell. Then used rectangle blocks and lastly, square blocks. Casey discovered that he could remove the yardstick from the blocks and placed one side of the yardstick on top of the wooden block with the other end still connected. This created a ramp. He then picked up a block and placed it on the yardstick. The block began to slide down.

            I am curious as to how the children would balance their building while on a slanted surface. Will their structures still be building upwards or will they explore new ways to build to prevent it from falling?