We pulled this activity from Let's Try It Out With Towers and Bridges, a Hands-On Early-Learning Science Activity book by Seymore Simon, and Nicole Fauteux. I hope to post more about this terrific series, later in the week. But, as we were learning about the importance of a strong foundation, for buildings, using play dough, and straws, I couldn't help but think of the parable of the wise man, who built his house on the rock, and the foolish man, who built on the sand (Matthew 7:24-27).
First we set up a tower. In our case it was three toilet paper tubes, that had been taped together for a telescope, some time before.
Just the tiniest breeze could knock it over, like a tree with no roots.
Once it was planted into a lump of play dough, even a much stronger wind couldn't knock it down.
Then we tried building a tower with straws, and play dough, again with a strong foundation.
When the storm came, it stood solid.
But when we took the foundation away...
And, you can find a printable coloring page, to go along with the lesson, here.
It's great to be a homeschooler.
6 comments:
This is a great activity. We have a game that requires you to build a pyramid (the game is called Zimbbos) and I have been trying to explain to R that you have to build a foundation so choose your pieces wisely, but it hasn't sunk in. I think I will try this activity with her!
I love the simplicity of this activity for teaching "A Wise Man Built His House Upon The Rock"
I love this. We did this one time with a house of cards, but this would work better for preschool.
I love the mixture of science and religion. And simple fun activities are the best. We will be trying this.
This sounds like a very interesting book! I was also thinking about extending it into pyramid shape, but I tried to explain advantages of pyramid shape before and it didn't think in yet.
Thank you so much for this idea.
I'll be using tomorrow in my Sunday school lesson!
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