STEAM with
Ms. Amy
April 6: Building and Stacking
Stacking Tower
Use material from your recycle bin to make a tower by only stacking them?
How tall can you build your tower before it falls? Balancing material can be tricky, unless you find a sturdy wide base.
Toy Chute
Have you ever played the board game Chutes and Ladders?
Can you build a chute for your toys to go down? Will you use a straw or a paper towel tube? Which toys slide down the fastest?
What happens if you adjust the chute to a different angle. If you tilt it so the top goes up higher that will make your angle steeper.
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Nuts and Bolts Structure
What kind of structure can you make only using nuts and bolts.
How can you prevent your structure from tipping over?
Bridge Building
Construct a bridge using any material you can find. Once the bridge is built, sketch how it looks. Take a look at your drawing and compare it to your construction of a bridge. Do you notice any rectangles in the structure or maybe triangles?
Can your bridge hold a book? Maybe two? See how many books it takes before your bridge collapses, falls down and breaks? Write that number on your bridge sketching.
Before you rebuild your bridge, watch the video titled, What Makes Your Bridge So Strong?
Now that you watched the video, what type of bridge did you first make? Was it a Beam Bridge? Take the challenge and build a different type of bridge. Sketch out your new bridge. Stack one book at a time on your new bridge and determine if this bridge will hold more books than your first bridge.
Take a look at all the ways a bridge can be built using only popsicle sticks, binder clips and clothespins:
Newton’s Cradle
Do you know what a Newton’s Cradle is? It is a toy named after a famous scientist, Sir Isaac Newton. This toy shows what momentum is - a motion that is created by force. Think about your fun times you had going down a slide.
See for yourself how momentum looks at the park:
Do you think you could make a marble toy that swings back and forth and doesn’t stop? A Newton’s Cradle Toy is something that I challenge you to make. You can engineer a toy without friction, so the marbles will keep swinging back and forth.
To build a Newton’s Cradle you will need
- craft sticks,
- 5 marbles,
- hot glue sticks,
- cardboard and string?
Watch the Video
Mystery Bag STEM Design Challenge
What can you build to solve the problem on the mystery card?
Can you solve all the mysteries?
Engineering Snacks
Can you build a structure that you can eat?
What food can you use?
Will it be a veggie tower or a fruit pyramid?
How tall can you build the structure before it falls?
Goldfish Pulley System
Do you remember using a pulley system in the Creative Play Area?
Can you make a pulley system for your goldfish?
Does it make a difference how fast or slow you pull?
Engineering Read Alouds & Storytime
Construction Cat Written by Barbara Odanaka - Watch Video
Rosie Revere Engineer Written by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts - Watch Video
If I Built A Car Written by Chris Van Dusen - Watch Video
Have You Thanked an Inventor Today? Written by Patrice McLaurin Illustrated by Dian Wang - Watch Video