Buildings have walls, and so do many cities. The longest wall of all is the Great Wall of China. It runs halfway across the country, and since it’s 16 to 20 feet wide, cars and people can travel on top of it. It zigzags because it connects pieces of wall built hundreds of years apart. If you straightened it, it would stretch 3,889 miles!
Wee ones: How many walls does your room have? Do any rooms in your home have more than that?
Little kids: The Great Wall is 20 feet wide at the bottom and 16 feet wide at the top. Is it wider at the top or bottom? Bonus: The Great Wall is about 25 feet high in many places. If your ladder reaches 1 foot higher, how high does your ladder reach? If you can count up 1 from 5, try counting up 1 from 25!
Big kids: If a house is a 50-foot-wide square, how long are its 4 walls put together? Bonus: Let’s say you can make 20 full houses from 1 mile (5280 feet) of wall. How many houses can you make from 4,000 miles of Great Wall walls? (Hint if needed: What if you could make just 2 houses from each mile of wall?)
Answers:
Wee ones: Different for everyone…most closed-in rooms have 4 walls, but if 1 side is open, it might have just 3. Or it might not be a rectangle!
Little kids: Wider at the bottom. Bonus: 26 feet.
Big kids: 200 feet. Bonus: 80,000 houses!
