Squirrel Playground

A Week of Anticipation and Imagining

We want a squirrel playground! This week we looked at examples of structures made for squirrels and decided what we'd like. We want to build a house with bridges on either side. We really struggled with the next step and knew we needed an expert.

Our SecondStep lesson about waiting was perfect for us as we waited until Friday for our expert, Mr. Linneman to visit. As a civil engineer, his job involves making and checking the safety of bridges. On Wednesday and Thursday we talked about his visit and thought of questions we could ask him and wonder how he could help us.

The following are our questions -

First we needed to find out a little bit about his job, so we wondered - 

What do you make/build?

Do you make a drawing and then build?

Do you use a ladder?

What do you measure with?

When you make things, what materials do you use?

Do you make things with wood? If so, what do you make?

And then some squirrel related questions -

Do you make things for squirrels? If yes, can you bring it to show us or do you have a picture?

Have you made a squirrel house before? If yes, how did you make it?

We want to make a bridge. How can we build a bridge so the squirrels are able to run across it?

He arrives!

We are so excited for his visit!

He brought the design plans and pictures of the bridges he has worked on.

He told us he uses hammers and many types of measuring devices.

We went outside and showed him what we had made so far. Then we went back inside and showed him our materials. We wondered if he would  help us.

He quickly had an idea for us! We connected the PVC pipe to hang it inthe tree.

He had the children test to see if they thougth the rope would be strong enough to hold the pipe.

He also suggested we hang things from the pipe.

So, one crew went outside to hang the pipe.

The other crew stayed inside making things to hang from the pipe. They wanted to drill holes in the lids of the cigar boxes. We just happened to have a hand drill to make this happen!

We were so busy!

We ran out of time, so next week we'll add the boxes to the pipe.

After Mr. Linneman left,

we were so excited he had an idea for us and that the girls helped him "put the pipe in the tree."

We put some seeds inside the pipe. Now we are wondering how the squirrels will like it.