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Driving Questions / Scenario

Can you build a house to protect your little pig from the Big Bad Wolf Hair Dryer?

Project Summary

After reading various versions of The Three Little Pigs, students will plan and design

houses that could protect the little pigs from the Big Bad Wolf (a hair dryer). They will go

through three versions of their house, improving as they go.

Note: Please make sure students have been introduced to the engineering process using this Intro Presentation

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Materials	Estimated Time	Standards
Small marshmallows Toothpick Pig - Must fit inside house - can use printout or small plastic pigs if available Wolf face printout Paper plates Planning Handout	2 days / class periods	K.P.2.1: Classify objects by observable physical properties (including size, color, shape, texture, weight, and flexibility).

Assessment Ideas
Formative	Summative

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Day One - Overview

Start of Lesson

Reconnect students back to the Three Little Pigs stories they have been reading and how the houses were made of different materials and the effects that had on each.
Show students the Big Bad Wolf Hair Dryer and let them know they’re going to build houses that he won’t be able to knock down!

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Think: 10 min

Day One

Introduce students to the materials they will be using (candy dots, toothpicks, and piggy cutouts). Have students describe the materials by their physical properties (including size, color, shape, texture, weight, and flexibility).
Model the planning process with the whole group using the planning sheet. Have students give ideas for how to use the candy dots and toothpicks to build a house that the little pig can fit into. Draw the ideas onto the planning sheet.
Put students in groups of 2 or 3. Ask students to brainstorm a design and then record that idea onto the planning sheet.

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Make: 20 min

Day One

Using the plan the students created in their small group, students build the house design out of toothpicks and candy dots.
Let students know that part of the “make” portion of the engineering process is to test the design and look for ways to improve it.
Test each design with the big bad wolf hair dryer. As you test, have students observe and identify reasons some houses were stronger than others.

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Day Two - Overview

Start of Lesson

Start by allowing students to recall the designs they used yesterday - what worked? What didn’t work? Why? How can it work better? Record ideas on chart paper.
Show students that the next step of the engineering cycle is to improve. Set the focus of the day- planning and improving on our designs.

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Improve: 30 min

In their small groups, students use the ideas from the whole group to plan/design their first improvement on their planning sheet.
When the improvement has been planned, students then create it using their toothpicks and candy dots.
The Big Bad Wolf Hair Dryer is used to test the new design. Based on this test, students mark on their planning sheet if their second design was better or worse than the first.
Students go through this process one more time- planning their design on their planning sheet and then creating and testing. Be sure to make students mark their planning sheet if their 3rd design was better or worse than their 2nd.

Day Two

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Think: 5 min

Day Two- Closure

Close the lesson up in whole group.
Review the engineering process and how they used it to improve their designs.
Review the physical properties of the materials used and how these properties helped or hurt their houses chances of blowing over (size, weight, flexibility, texture).
Ask students questions such as:

Was your design perfect the first time we tested it?
How was your house design improved?
Was it helpful to have a plan? Why?
If you could build a house with different materials, what would you use to make it stronger?
Is there anything else you can imagine doing to make this house even stronger?

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Final Day- Closure

Please consider doing one of the following:

Tweeting out pictures and/or comments from the lesson (use your school hashtag or #mcsstem)
Blogging
Add to an online portfolio/website
Share with parents pictures of the house designs.
Feature the house designs on a school broadcast
Connect with another class about the project (Skype, Hangouts, blogging, etc.)

Extensions

Have students create new house designs using other materials (around room or brought from home).
Ask students to draw their own house at home and talk about the materials used and how they work together to make their own house strong.

Curriculum Connections:

Have students come up with a story about their own little piggy and it’s adventures with the Big Bad Wolf Hair Dryer.
Allow students to identify the numerous shapes that are formed by their toothpicks and talk about their different properties (squares, triangles, rectangles). Talk about how certain shapes were stronger design ideas than others.