Building Toothpick Bridges (Math Projects: Grades 5-8) [Paperback]

Jeanne Pollard (Author), Dale Seymour Publications Secondary (Compiler)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

A company (five or six students) must build a bridge that beats the budget and bears a required load. The architect and manager order materials from the warehouse (the teacher), while the accountant writes checks and keeps the books. Grades 5-8

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Paperback: 28 pages
• Publisher: Dale Seymour Publications (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0866512667
• ISBN-13: 978-0866512664
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #269,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Limited uses, January 2, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Building Toothpick Bridges (Math Projects: Grades 5-8) (Paperback)

I read this book hoping for a tool to help my 8th grade students design and build complex toothpick bridges in science class. This book is a great interdisciplinary tool and I have seen web sites for 5th graders where the book was the center of a great unit. However, the bridges in the book are simple project composed of two sides and a few connecting toothpicks. If you want a complex science project fro older kids, forget this book. Get it as a unit involving many subjects in a multiple-subject classroom.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Perennially Popular Project!, February 8, 2003

By 

Lynn Hughes (Bucks County, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Building Toothpick Bridges (Math Projects: Grades 5-8) (Paperback)

Although I have made a number of adaptations to this project, the basic concept is excellent as written. (Example of adaptation: we make it non-competitive by setting a target weight for bridges to hold instead of testing all bridges to destruction. Everyone can feel successful, not just the team with the strongest bridge.) Students in middle school can learn a lot about structures, measurement, budgeting, planning, design, and teamwork from this activity. It's always one that our fifth and sixth grade students at The Miquon School recall fondly years later. Although it is presented in the book's title as a math activity, we use it as part of a larger study of structures in social studies -- a good way to cross discipline boundaries.

33 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Building Toothpick Bridges, December 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Building Toothpick Bridges (Math Projects: Grades 5-8) (Paperback)

I was disappointed by this book because it was not what I expected. It is structured as a classroom lesson plan for a team bridge building project for grade school children. The book does not provide much substance for real design and construction. I would not recommend this book to anyone looking for instructions on how to actually build toothpick bridges.