Tallest Tower
You will need:
• Variety of sized and shaped containers (e.g. ice-cream or butter tubs, cardboard tubes, tins and small plastic storage containers
• Measuring tape (or string/wool/ribbon/hands)
• Note pad
• Pen/pencil/chalk to record your findings
• Any type of tape
The Activity:
• Talk about which containers would be good for building the tallest tower. Discuss the differences of the items such as longest, shortest and widest.
• Next, build the tower. Some children may dive right in, using trial and error, adapting their building techniques each time the tower falls. Other children may have a particular structure in mind: encourage them to draw their plan before beginning to build.
Ask your child to think about different configurations and try them out together.
• Once your tower has reached the desired height, measure the tower using a measuring tape, string or even your hands.
• Record your first tallest tower's height. This could be the start of a longer challenge to beat the previous record.
How this supports knowledge and development:
Collecting containers provides opportunities to explore shapes and size and to develop their counting skills.
Building the tower encourages critical thinking, problem solving and design skills. They will also learn about calculation, measurement and numeracy.
Your child will also develop their hand-eye co-ordination and physical skills as they build their tower.
EXTEND THE ACTIVITY
• Increase the challenge by using smaller objects for your next building
• Identifying the strengths and weakness of the first tower to help produce the plan for an improved ‘tallest tower’
TOP TIP This is an activity that is also great fun outdoors. Compare the size of the tallest tower built to how tall the child, parent or even a tree in your garden is.
