3D Towns (2nd Grade)
Welcome to Diamond Downtown. When you arrive, you will find many of the buildings and services that you enjoy in real life. The 2nd graders learn all about shapes and figures in their classroom, so in STEM class they used that knowledge to create 3 buildings with a partner. We assigned each team 3 buildings that you would find in a town. The first thing we had to do was decide on the location of the buildings on our boards. We did this by pretending we were in an airplane looking down with an aerial view. The students drew 3 shapes on their boards. This represented the base (footprint) of the buildings. From the base, they built up to create the 3D structure. There were many examples of shapes and figures used on the board. Everything was built with the use of everyday objects that make good construction pieces. Blue tape was used for the roads. We had a Main Street through the middle and many roads off of it. The students added lots of details to make it more realistic. There are ponds, bridges, power lines, stop signs, parking lots, flowers and even a park. The students were not given any parameters to follow. They were free to build however they imagined. The one thing that did matter was the size of the buildings. They needed to be in proportion to one another. The students did this automatically without me having to tell them to watch for that. The construction of this town was a collaborative engineering project and the students did a fantastic job. When all the boards were joined, the city came to life and we could imagine hearing the sounds of a town when it it’s filled with people and cars.
