When I started this engineering theme with the Herons, I had an idea of how it would probably progress: sawhorse towers, best bridge designs, ending with some bridge designing and building (perhaps creating a bridge over our creek!) The Herons, however, took this theme in a rather different direction.
After our realistic and abstract drawing lessons from Keenan, much of the students' work in saw-horse towers was centered around finding all the shapes they could make with saw horses, and combining those shapes into structures. This theme of shapes into 3D structures continued to inspire our work. After a discussion of geodesic domes and the design of the Epcot center, the Herons were eager to investigate creating a dome from cups – but really, why stop with a dome. "Let's make it a whole ball," said one. "Yeah, a sphere!" came the cries. And so we were off. 4th and 5th graders worked in 2 teams to get the structure started, and then worked together to continue adding cups.
The adventure continued over the next few days. Architectural decisions were made: staples over paperclips, a newspaper core for support. After 4 trips to the store for cups, the "Epcup Center" (envisioned by MR and EN as the Epcot Center for peeps during Village this year) was complete. It may look a bit more like an egg or jellybean than a sphere, but no one was discouraged – the Herons made the structure themselves and it is incredible.
We also spent some time making polygons from straws and yarn. The students predicted whether a triangle or a square would be stronger (triangle won hands down). After testing, they added more straws and yarn to their shapes to test whether triangular solids were stronger than cubes (yes). RC decided he was going to keep testing and creating different polygons, and several other Herons followed his lead by experimenting with these constructions.
During read aloud we have been reading David Macaulay's Pyramid and Cathedral, taking special note of their building techniques. JA and CS observed today that in both of the books a strong, perfectly level foundation and walls was a priority. This knowledge will come in handy as we start the last piece of engineering: building a famous structure with blocks, Legos, or K-nex. Careful planning, strong shapes, and stable foundations will be key to these creations. I look forward to sharing them with you! -ET
The Rookery 
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