Angry Birds Obsession

I have one student who is very into the Angry Birds game right now.  Several other children have played the game and are following his lead.  They began by building the pig houses in the block center and using other blocks to knock them over.    I brought in 2 baby gyms (I don't know what they are called!) to extend their play.  I let them decide what needed to be used to knock down the structures they had built.  They are currently in a trial and error mode of experimentation.  They have already decided that yarn isn't strong enough so we have switched to shoe strings.  I'm anxious to see where this interest will take us in scientific exploration.  I plan to add in some catapults later to extend what they are using to knock down the pig houses.  I'm excited to announce that last Friday our preschool classrooms each received an iPad!  We will be using the iPad and iPods to let them explore the actual game with technology.  This may give them ideas of things we need to add in the block center for their reenactments.

This is the message board that spurred the interest in our room.  Notice the catapult at the left with the bird and the dots outlining the trajectory of the bird as it flies toward the pig house!

Our first attempt to use yarn to hold the blocks on the swing.  The kids taped the string on (after I knotted it around) so it wouldn't slide off the block.

The second attempt using the shoe string instead of yarn.

Trying it out to knock down a pig house!  We're gonna have to go back to the drawing board for something heavier to knock down the hollow blocks.