How the heck do 6-foot-tall people build 60-foot-tall buildings? Or 600-foot-tall buildings? By using “scaffolding.” It’s a stack of little rectangular floors connected with sets of stairs, almost like a treehouse along the side of a building. Workers can walk up to any spot to stack bricks, wash windows, and paint the building. Think about the highest place you’ve been, then imagine standing there in the wind while washing a window!
Wee ones: How many stories tall is your home? Talk about it with a grown-up – and you can climb any stairs together to check it out!
Little kids: If each story, or floor, of a building is 10 feet tall, how tall is a 2-story building (with a flat roof)? Bonus: If you counted up the height of a 6-story building by 10s, what numbers would you say?
Big kids: If a painter climbs up 2 12-foot stories, and he’s 6 feet tall and can reach another 2 feet above that, how high on the building can he paint? Bonus: If you stand on the 3rd level of scaffolding where every story is 11 feet, are your feet higher or lower than that paintbrush?
The sky’s the limit: If one painter is 142 feet in the air and another is 86 feet in the air, and you climb up halfway between the two, how high are you?
Answers:
Wee ones: Different for everyone…check out the floors of your home!
Little kids: 20 feet tall. Bonus: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60.
Big kids: 32 feet (24 + 6 + 2). Bonus: Your feet are higher, since they’re at 33 feet.
The sky’s the limit: At 114 feet. 142 and 86 are 56 feet apart, and 1/2 of that distance is 28 feet You then add 28 to 86, or subtract 28 from 142. Either way you land at 114.
