Start with a read-along as Goldie leads her mud-happy dog, Nacho past the sprinkler, hose and pond in hopes of getting him squeaky clean but he would have nothing to do with it! Her loyal companion followed Goldie right up to the platform overlooking the circus, above the dunk tank, ready to be released when she hit the target. The story was wonderful motivation for building the dunk tank as kids couldn’t wait to take aim and drop Nacho into the water. Little girls learned the language of engineering as they added “axle,” “wheel,” “hinge,’” “spacer” and “bill of materials” to their vocabulary. Kids followed the easily illustrated 6 directions and needed no prompts to act on step #7: “throw the ball!“ The back of the fold-out story attaches to the structure and acts as a cheery carnival backdrop to the dunk tank. The kit includes enough wheels, blox, long and short axles, spacers, and targets to complete two other designs, a airplane and helicopter for Nacho to pilot. GoldieBlox sets are a wonderful pairing of STEM concepts and the language learning behind science as kids talked their way through making the models, discussing how they worked and what didn’t work, preparing them for future assignments in the classroom where they are increasingly required to answer “Why?” and “How?” they arrived at their finished product.
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