Architecture School: Day 5

Demonstrating Columns and Beam

I do intend on getting more than just one day of Architecture school done a week. But since it's summer, we're being flexible for play dates and other activities.

Today we worked from K Grade: Lesson 5 from Architecture: It's Elementary! (pssst, it's free to download!) I take a little bit of issue with this lesson because it tells you some things to talk about, but assumes you know it and doesn't give you all the details. Also, I keep forgetting to print out their glossary, and they don't give the definitions of the new vocabulary words in the lesson.

The idea for this lesson was to introduce the structural principals of opposing forces, tension, and compression, (Yes, authors of the book, I added the Oxford comma to that, so I didn't put it in quotes. I can't help it; you have made me realize my love for the Oxford comma. Moving on....) to develop knowledge of three-dimensional forms, and to develop basic vocabulary of structural principals and components.

What we actually did was to act out most of the structures, talk a little about the history and why of them, and then went on to the art project because Lady Bug was tired. I think I'll do some research and thinking and extend the lesson for the next time.

Modified Arch

A cool moment doing this lesson was asking Builder Boy if he had ever heard the term "flying buttress" before. He remembered it from watching Beauty and the Beast! (Cogsworth's tour of the castle, after the "Be Our Guest" dinner.)

We also talked about the fact that modern building materials like the very strong steel were not yet invented at the time these architectural features were being used so much, and that they needed other ways to support very tall buildings.

Once we had acted out together the different support shapes (yay for kinetic learning!) we moved on to the next 123 I Can Build! art project. Or at least, we tried to.


















Yeah, not as stable as we had hoped. I even read all the directions this time!

I didn't plan it that way, but I think this reinforced our lesson of needing strong enough building supplies for tall projects. I'm going to dry the sticks, cut them down a bit, and try again next time. Also, maybe we should use clay instead of playdough....



Oh, and TA DA! Here is our (finally) completed first project from the book! The boys named it and I made a sign for it.

(Here's the link to previous Architecture School Lessons.)

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