Solid Buildings

For the past few weeks our second graders have been learning about different states of matter. To work on one specific state of matter, solids, the students had the opportunity to think of what solids are appropriate for building certain objects. In order for students to really think this through, they were given the opportunity to build three different items (such as a house, bike, car, etc.) with numerous building tools spread across the classroom (magnets, counting cubes, shape tiles, lincoln logs, etc.). Students worked in pairs to build their three objects:

After building their objects, students thought through a few different questions. How did you choose the materials for your design solution? What was the purpose of different blocks? Students thought through these questions and discovered that different blocks (different solids) are better at designing certain objects than others. For example, students would rather build a house out of the lincoln logs than with the counting cubes because it built a sturdier house. Through this activity, students realized that the properties of different solids truly make a difference when they think through objects that they would make out of those solids.