Kindergartners Engineer a House 

According to Danielle Necessary’s kindergarten class, their class mascot, Boboski, comes alive at night after they go home, just like Woody and Buzz Lightyear from Disney’s “Toy Story.”

Boboski loves writing letters to the kids, which Necessary uses as a springboard for class lessons. 

As their love for Boboski grew, the kindergartners asked if they could build their beloved mascot a house, as he currently didn’t have one.

Necessary began their house-building journey with students exploring shapes and creating different building and design challenges. 

In one challenge, students built a pen for a (toy) animal using only popsicle sticks and clothes pins that needed to withstand a tap from Necessary. In another challenge, students experimented with squares and triangles, using playdough as a bonding agent, to figure out what shapes create a stable build. 

Remy, one of Necessary’s students, discovered if she put a triangle inside a square, it stabilized her structure even more and shared her findings with her classmates. 

“We started reading about engineers, because they’re doing more than building. The students are researching, designing, and figuring out what it takes to create a home from the planning process to the construction,” Necessary said. 

Once they had a solid understanding of different kinds of houses and what makes a house stable, the class created a preliminary list for what Boboski’s house should have, which included:

• a dog bone
• lights
• a cushion
• windows
• a door
• Boboski’s name on the outside

Chelsie Gamble, from Omnia360 and a carpenter by trade, visited the class and provided construction tips.

After meeting Gamble, students went on a hike to collect sticks for the first house prototype. Gamble helped cut and tie the sticks together, following the students’ directions. 

Unfortunately, the kindergartners discovered the string tying their sticks together would not hold over time, and some of the sticks they collected weren’t suitable for building. 

Days later, Gamble surprised the class with a house frame she built in her free time that helped fix the issues of their first prototype, which the students were delighted to receive. To help make the house more like a home, students learned how to weave and wove fabric strips through the frame’s netting.

Although they’ve made incredible progress on their engineering journey, students say the build is far from over. They shared that Boboski still needs a mailbox, a playground, a bunk bed, and maybe even a garden.