Building Brick Challenge: Build a Tall Tower

What You Need:

• Building bricks of any size and shape
   

What You Do:

1. Ask your learner, “Can you build a tall tower?”
    
2. Encourage your child to make a plan. Ask, “How many bricks do you think you will need?” or “ Are you going to build a foundation?”
    
3. Give your child time to create their design. Ask, “Do you need help?” (They should ultimately be doing most of the building.)
    
4. Have designers play with their new design. Ask, “What kind of building is this?” or “ Who lives in this tower?”
    
5. After testing out the design, ask your learner about ways they can adjust their design. For example:
   • Is there anything you want to change about the tower?
   • How can you make the tower stronger?
   • Do you need other tools or objects to make the tower taller?
   • Do you think the tower will stay up if the wind blows, or during a storm or earthquake?
      
6. Challenge designers to share their new designs. They can record a video, or draw a picture of the design and add a few sentences describing it. Ask some prompting questions, such as:
   • What did you enjoy the most about building the tower?
   • What would be the purpose of the tower?
   • Where would this tower be the most useful?
   • Where would this tower be the least useful? 

Amplify this challenge! Choose one or more of the following questions to add a new level of difficulty to the challenge:

• Can you count the number of bricks you used?
• Is there another way you can measure the height of the tower?
• Can you build a tower as tall as you are?
• Can you build a city of towers?
• Can you rest something on top of your tower?