Skyscrapers, Buildings, and Structures!

This week my kinders are diving into a study of buildings - primarily skyscrapers.  Today I explained that skyscrapers have four main parts - the foundation, the beams (skeleton), stories, and facade.  I played a few youtube videos of New York's skyline as well.

Next, I gave each color family (four students in each group) cardstock and blocks to build skyscrapers.  They had to have floors to their buildings.

The tallest skyscraper built was 21 floors.  The students realized that the stronger buildings (ones that did not fall over) had more supports.  Balance was an important factor as well!

After we had built and experienced our own skyscrapers (and I knew they had the concept of "stories tall")  I showed them the tallest building in the world in Dubai.  They were amazed!! 

MATH
In math today, I had the children create skylines using 2-D and 3-D shapes.  Each group created a skyline and each child was required to draw at least one skyscraper.   Once all the drawings were done, I had the students measure their skyscrapers with cubes (nonstandard measurement).  They absolutely loved it!

 Student recording the height of each skyscraper in her group.

Tomorrow we will build standing skyscrapers out of boxes!