Boat Building Challenge

Activity Overview

Building with manipulatives is an essential way for students to explore physical properties, spatial awareness, abstract thinking, mathematical thinking and more. This building project will be the first in a line of building provocations to help your student expand the way they approach their work and “build” on their developing skills.

What You Need

• Building materials (Legos, MagnaTiles, wooden blocks, house furniture, pots and pans)

Steps

1. Build a boat out of whatever building materials you have - MagnaTiles, blocks, Legos, pots and pans, chairs and pillows - get creative!

2. We encourage you to work in an area where the structure can be left up for days at a time so that the students can come back to it, explore, and change as they feel fit.

Guiding Questions

• What do you want your structure to look like?

• What are the steps we need to take? What is our first step?

• What details can we add to this structure?

Extensions

• Incorporate play people, animals, and vehicles into your build.

• Act out dramatic play scenarios with your boat – where is the boat going? Are there sharks or pirates along the way? A pod of dolphins or whales? What do we do if the boat starts to sink? What will we do if we happen upon a mysterious island?