Engineers at work!

This past week we worked on designing and building cars! First we looked at various different pictures of different kinds of race cars and we also looked at toy cars. This sparked a discussion about the kinds of cars our parents drive. The children were interested! We talked about the different features of the cars we had pictures of. The children made observations through drawings and notes. 
Then I had them draw a design of a car they would like to build. They drew and they labelled. Then I gave them a challenge! I provided the kids with straws, paper, tape and peppermint lifesavers. I placed all the materials in each child's own ziploc baggie. The challenge was to build a car that would move on it's wheels down the length of two meter sticks and blown by a hand held fan.  
The children were so excited to get building!! They built and tested and changed things and  tried new ideas! It was awesome! 
One of my little girls had a very successful design and test, so she immediately became the class expert! Everyone was asking for her "advice"! So cool! This was a wonderful set of lessons to go with our "Building Things" unit in Science! 

Trying out the hand held fan to make the car move.

Our cars displayed

Our "Expert" engineer! 

Trying out a new add on design

Adding more details and figuring out that less weight is better! 

Trying out a "sail" 

Very proud of her design! 

Hallway races!