Balancing Act

By drilling four teeny holes into a wooden cube, you have a simple balancing tool.
Add a few skewers, some plasticine and beads and you have an activity.
This video sparked my interest in the project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqcLjlN823o&feature=youtu.be though not the first time we've attempted a balancing act; http://mamadrool.blogspot.ca/2014/10/balancing-sculptures.html or used our wooden scale to experiment with http://mamadrool.blogspot.ca/2015/01/exploration-station-scale-measurement.html

Front Seat=Enthusiasm

Back Seat=Innocent 'til proven guilty!

 

Our intention was to take some time and thread beads on each upward facing skewer, chit chat about math, addition and subtraction, pendulums etc. etc.
Baby C's intention was to inject interference whenever possible;)
It wasn't long before we turned this balancing project into a free block-play session!

O gathered all the wooden cubes she could collect, to stack into a tall tower.
 

Shifty Gaze

While Baby C enjoyed watching me build a structure whose fate was clear from the start!

If you have budding architects or engineers look no further than, 'Iggy Peck Architect' and 'Rosie Revere Engineer' by Andrea Beaty. (the latter full of female engineers and heroine's!)
Clever stories told in rhyme with illustrations over graph paper! Love it!