Instant Challenge: Build a Bridge

We joined along this week in the Instant Challenge hosted by Michelle @ Delightful Learning. "Up for a Challenge?" is a weekly meme designed to get students involved in critical thinking and creative problem solving by doing an Instant Challenge. Our kids were so excited when I showed them the projects we were going to work on together. The plan was for Rick to work on them with us….but Mommy got a little carried away and did the first one solo with the kids.

Even though the second challenge has already been posted, we started with the first one: Bridge Builders. The project was set up on the dining room table and overall was a pretty big success ~ the biggest challenge was keeping everyone focused on the task at hand and soothing the rioting crowds {and trying to let the kids solve the problem without adding in my 2 cents…}.

Laurianna actually did the majority of the bridge building on her own, since McKenna didn’t want to work as a team {which frustrated Laurianna to no end}. McKenna got a birthday phone call in the middle of the challenge, so Laurianna did the bulk of the building on her own.

The cards that made up the two pillars of the bridge were cut with scissors and wedged to fit together. Here’s the finished product:

The big question was: Would it support the weight of the nails??

We started counting up {getting nervous the more nails we added} ~ and guess what? We made it up to all TEN NAILS!!! YEAH!!!

Our Score {according to Mommy}:

• 10/10 points for having a completed bridge at the end of Part One.
• 50/50 points for being able to support the weight of all 10 nails {5 points per nail}
• 10/20 points for creativity ~ it wasn’t super creative, but it did get the job done!
• 5/20 points for teamwork {when McKenna was helping out} but I gave Laurianna a 20/20 because really she did it on her own

Overall score: 90/100 for Laurianna doing the project independently. 75/100 if we count it as a joint effort.

This was a great first project for us and we have the supplies on hand to work on the next challenge: Boat Race! If you are interested in being a part of the Instant Challenges, you can find out more here.