Fort Friday

Fort Friday is one of my favorite activities to do each year. It embeds engineering and the 21st century skills of collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, creativity and imagination.

Using the Seesaw app, I send a note to all parents, inviting them to send a standard bed sheet to school with their child, along with an explanation of what it is for. In the morning, I split the students into groups of four or five. After being assigned a certain area in the classroom, the group's first task is to share ideas and then plan and design their fort. All students in the group must get a chance to share, although the final plan may be a compromise of ideas. I have found that this step can be very difficult for some students--which is one of the reasons I find this process so important!

Once the design process is completed, the next step is constructing the fort according to each group's plan. Again, this is a test of patience and teamwork, especially when the students realize their plan may have some design flaws.

After constructing their fort, each team tests their fort to see if it works the way they had planned (and hoped). Then, they get a chance to redesign and rebuild. Sometimes this results in a better constructed fort, sometimes, not so much.

At the end of this step, some teams were still struggling to create a useable fort. We decided to add a step to our engineering process: Call in an expert. We phoned our fourth grade friends and they sent 6 experts to assist our teams. Team members explained the problems they were facing and the experts helped them find solutions. The students made revisions to their plans to reflect these changes.

Finally, all forts were complete! Whew, it was a long morning! Sometimes, when doing this project, I start to get that anxious feeling that comes when I don't feel like I am doing something "academic." However, I simply have to reflect on the process and the conversations I overheard and know that valuable skills were developed on this day--skills that will prepare students for a lifetime of working with others, solving problems, and persevering in the face of difficulty. Nothing can top that!