Build ’em up and knock ’em down! Skyscraper Building Cards are a perfect addition to your building play center for kids who love to play architect and Godzilla all in one!
We decided to test how our R60450 Skyscraper Building Cards could be used in a variety of different projects. One of these projects was designed to introduce students to city planning. This project enabled students to work together as a team to create little cities with the basic structural design of the Skyscraper Building Cards. It was up to students to plan where all the buildings went, how high they were built and what types of buildings they were making.
We went to the Design Exchange Museum in Toronto for their March Break camp and set out the materials for the campers. The Skyscraper Building Cards were fairly easy to pick up: the blue cards are made to stand upright while the red scaffolding cards were placed flat on top of the blue cards.
Once campers got the basic idea how to build with the cards, they decided to immediately start building a city. They made many little structures to fill up a large amount of space.
We loved the way the campers decided to criss-cross the scaffolding cards. This added a bit of interest to their building designs.
In the same group, one of the campers decided to build upwards instead of outwards. She stacked multiple little buildings together to make a base, then repeated the same design on the next level. This continued until she reached a reasonable height, which prompted the other campers to claim that the surrounding buildings were actually little “houses” and the big building represented the city center.
Other campers got right into the fun. They constructed buildings with floors for people to work in. The people toys are our R75304 Super Topplers!
The designs began to get more and more complex…
This design, for instance, included a 3-level parking garage which was attached to the building by ramps and walkways.
Finally, we took our structures to the next level by introducing our newest R59630 Sensory Tray! The Sensory Tray is a sand and water table all-in-one, featuring a vibrating mechanism to engage students’ senses even further. We placed a bit of sand at the bottom of the tray to give the structures some stability.
But once the unit was turned on, it toppled the building right over! It was a great challenge and the campers were eager to rebuild their structures with more stability.
We had great fun testing out new building designs and challenging ourselves with new ideas and materials!
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