When the tower keeps falling down

Colored paper cups

Why do you keep doing that

The cups had pictures on them. Ice, and snowmen. Chaewon sorted them by the picture before anything got stacked, and then they went down wide side first, one layer at a time.

A house for penguins.

A block went in between two of them to hold a space open.

“This is the door. This is the toilet.”

Then the cups came down. Chaewon stood them back up. They came down again. Up again. The next time, another child reached over to set one on top, and the whole thing went at that moment.

“Why do you keep doing that!”

“Things fall over while you're making them,” said Teacher Yubok. “The higher you go, the more they tip. Shall we make it wide instead? What do you think would work?”

Chaewon gathered up the fallen ones and started setting them down alongside the other child's, in a row rather than a stack.

From there the cups and blocks went out sideways, further and further, until the house had a path the penguins could walk along.

What kept it going Teacher Yubok said nothing about the shouting. He said that things fall over while you are making them, and then asked what would work — and the answer turned out to be sideways.

Buses

Why does it keep coming apart?

The bus they had built the day before was still where they had left it, and they got it out again themselves.

The waffle blocks kept slipping loose while they played.

“Why does it keep coming apart?”

“Should we try taping it?”

They taped the places where the blocks fit together, and started again. The blocks came apart again anyway.

“This is too weak. I want to make a bus out of a strong box.”

Umbrellas

A bit more to the side

The umbrella blocks were upside down, and things were going into them.

One block on top, then another, until it went over.

“It fell down.”

“You have to go slowly.”

Up again. Over again. And then, after enough of them:

“Got it!”

One of them watched how a friend had done it and did it that way. Another one held the bottom steady while somebody else placed the top.

“I'll hold it for you.”

The next day they were still at it, and by then they were talking about where things go rather than how fast.

“It works better here.”

“A bit more to the side.”

Play tents

Which part is the weak one?

The tent had been up since the day before, and today the camping things came with it — bedding, skewers, plates, a bag.

The bedding was what would finish it. It went over the roof, and the tent came down.

Nobody said anything for a moment.

“Why did it collapse?”

“Which part is the weak one?”

“I think it's weak at the bottom.”

“Let's join more of the straw pieces on.”

So the bottom went back up thicker, with bracing, and the work got shared out.

By then so many of them wanted tents of their own that the straw pieces ran out. Teacher Yubok suggested other blocks. They tried those and came back to the straw ones — the ones that had fallen down — and more were ordered for the next day.

The next day there were enough, and the one tent became tents all over the room.

“This is where you sleep!”

“Let's grill meat tonight!”

Things went onto skewers and got held over the fire. Somebody cooked, somebody ate, somebody kept the fire going, and the rest went in and out of the tents carrying whatever was needed.

Toy trains

The tape that's sticky on both sides

“Let's go on the train!”

Yesterday's train was made of thin boxes, and it came apart while they were getting on it.

“The boxes keep falling off.”

“That must be annoying, playing on a train that keeps coming apart,” said Teacher Yubok. “What would stop them falling?”

“Stick two boxes together.”

More boxes came out, and they got the tape themselves.

“Engineering works! No trips today!”

Then somebody picked the train up, and it came apart again.

“You know the tape that's sticky on both sides?”

“Double-sided tape, do you mean?”

That was it. They peeled it off themselves and pressed the boxes onto each other and tested it by lifting.

“Right — stick it on the train now.”

And they said where it went.

Colored paper cups

A bridge made of paper

The cups went down in a line and a book went over them. Then more cups, and another book, until the bridge ran the length of the floor.

Bori went to walk on it.

“Careful,” said Teacher Yepark, and careful did not come into it. There is nothing inside a paper cup. The bridge came down under one foot.

So the cups went upward instead. A cup, a book, a cup, a book, taking turns.

Standing a cup on a cup was the hard part. They kept sliding off the one underneath. Then somebody put a cup into the space between two cups instead of on top of one, and it held.

Hands came together over that.

Once they stayed standing, the game turned into hiding behind them.

Building bricks

Now it won't break

The number train was already long, so the brick baseplates came out and went end to end, with bricks pressed in between to hold them together. That made a track.

Then Teacher Yubok brought over a baseplate with a road printed on it, so the bricks went underneath — a wall of them, with the road on top, up off the floor.

One of them put the next plate down sloping, off the end of the high bit.

“You could drive up there!”

So that was the start of the line.

The trouble was that the printed plate was wider than the wall it was sitting on. Every trip along it, it came off. Then again. Then again.

So the wall came out and round cushions went in instead, and the plate sat on those.

“Now it won't break.”

Toy microphones

The cross blocks kept sliding apart

A picture of a concert hall went up on the wall, and after that the blocks came out for building a stage.

The cross blocks went first. They slid. The stage came apart under its own weight, and got built again, and slid again.

So the cross blocks went back and the heavy bricks came out instead, and once the stage was up it got taped down so it could not move at all.

Then they got on it.

One of them sang from up there. One went and fetched a microphone and sang into that. One tied a scarf round their head first, and then sang.

Wooden blocks

How do you make the one that leans?

The day before they had been looking at a globe, at buildings from countries around the world. Pictures of the buildings went up in the room, and they started making them out of blocks and whatever else was there.

One of them made the Eiffel Tower out of the wooden planks.

“Wow, it's exactly the same!”

“I want to make one too!”

“I'm making this one!”

Then there was the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

“How do you make this one?”

They talked it through and used paper plates and toilet paper tubes from the room, stacking carefully, working on it together.

When the building fell down they laughed, and stacked it again.