Haven’t had a chance to try a Storybook STEM Challenge in the Tinkering Garage yet? Specially-designed for early childhood learners, these activities help bring favorite stories to life while also providing valuable teaching moments. Try your hands at our Three Little Pigs’ House challenge at home! Can you help the three little pigs by building their houses to keep them safe from the wolf’s powerful blow?
Materials:
- Straws (20)
- Tape
- Paper
- Pencil
- Hair Dryer
Activity:
Start out by reading The Three Little Pigs with your budding engineer. Using your paper and pencil, sketch a design for your little pig’s house that uses the materials at hand. Take the straws and begin making a base for your house’s design, then stack additional straws on top of each other to build the house using tape as needed.
Once your house is built head use the hair dryer to see if your house will stand up to the wolf’s huffs and puffs. Did it stay up, or did it fall down? Talk about why you think what happened, happened.
Further Exploration:
- See if you can redesign the house to be even stronger.
- Are there other materials you have at home you could use to build more houses? Try different builds to see what will keep the Three Little Pigs safe!
- Now that you have a working prototype, get creative and think of ways to customize it or use it in different ways!
