Children’s Engineering Bringing Children’s Engineering to the Elementary Classrooms Unit #5 Structures with Focus on Directing Structures and Design Brief for Building a Playground Created by Miss Kelley Davis (kdavis@pagecounty.k12.va.us) Page County Public Schools Division-Wide STEM Coach

OK Engineers...let’s learn about playgrounds

Playgrounds are a type of Structure A structure is something built out of a number of parts that work together AND must resist the force of gravity. (That means it won’t fall down.)

Let’s read a story about your dream home and playground...

Now that we’ve finished reading If I Build a House You get to design and build your own playground to go in the backyard of your new dream home. Here are a few examples of playgrounds and the equipment you may see...

A bench swing

A wheelchair swing

A seat swing for young kids

A tire swing

A seat/tire swing

A boingy seat

A boingy elephant

A boingy dolphin

The wheel of death!

Hang on tight!!!

A merry-go-round

Bouncing steps

Jungle gym

Jungle gym too

Spider jungle gym

Scarier spider jungle gym

Curvy monkey bars

Round monkey bars

Snail monkey bars

Rock wall

Rope wall

Inside climbing structure

See saw

See saw with seats

Unsafe see saw

Circular slide

Triple slide

Car for kids

Fish to climb in

Castle playground

Dragon playground

Young children’s playground

Playground for disabled children

Daycare playground

Small playground

Treehouse playground

Wooden playground

Now it’s your turn! Design a playground for your yard. Make sure it has at least 3 pieces of playground equipment!