Demolition

 Sometimes when building, half the fun is knocking it down. We read a book about Demolition by Sally Sutton and noticed it had a wrecking ball in the picture. We wondered why you would knock real buildings down and we learnt that sometimes that has to happen to make way for new buildings.

We talked about the parts of the wrecking ball... 

It's got a crane on it- Jack 

It had rope or string to connect it together.-Frank

It has a ball at the bottom.- Hudson

After the tamariki came up with their ideas we decided to make our own.

We used out pipeworks set to make a frame instead of a crane as we didn't have a crane on hand.

Hudson rolled up a small ball of playdough and suggested that we use that to knock things down.

It did look like a ball but we all wondered if it would be hard enough. There was only one way to find out...

Teacher Laura grabbed a few other items from the resource room that could perhaps have been a wrecking ball. We talked about what we thought would work and then we decided to test our theory.

Jack helped to build a small structure to test it on.
A simple thumbs up for if it worked or a thumbs down for if it didn't.

Once we had established a wrecking ball we needed to go back to our initial ideas of how it would connect.

Ralph said, " We need to tie a knot."

Laura put it to the group, " Well who can tie knots?" It was important to give the tamariki the opportunity to try.

" Marley taught me how to tie knots." Frank said and he began to blow everyone's mind as he formed his knot on the string! Ka Pai Frank. Ralph remembered, " I can tie knots on my dressing gown rope." So he was coached through the process as Frank offered some advice, " You put it through and tight." 

Mission accomplished. 

With the knot complete and the structure nearly ready , it was time to add the wrecking  ball of choice!

The children came up with the idea to thread the string through the tennis ball holder so we tried that first… we held our breath with anticipation and… nothing happened.

Teacher Laura asked  the tamariki “ Why did the wrecking ball not crash the tower down.”

Two responses were fired back!

“ We need it taller!”-Frank

“We need a longer rope!”- Keelan

Great suggestions and both correct! 

They worked to build taller towers and BOOM,CRASH, THWACK! We had towers tumbling down all afternoon!

Great collaboration, idea sharing, problem solving, learning through trial and error, responding to reading, oral language and encouragement went on. It was really incredible sitting back and letting the children take over. They are clever!