Building Pyramids

As a fun project in their study of Ancient Egypt, two of our 5th/6th grade History classes built models of the pyramids—to scale! For a few weeks, class time was devoted to building pyramids. It was an interesting exercise not only in geometry and construction, but also in resourcing and problem solving. Students worked in groups, and each group was given only sugar cubes and glue.



Some used cardboard to help them, some employed Styrofoam board. One group used only sugar cubes and found out rather quickly that they would run out of supplies mighty fast if they built a solid pyramid of sugar. If they required extra materials, they had to write a proposal and present it to the teacher as to why their project deserved more resources. The proposal required a lot of math, as the group had to calculate how many sugar cubes they had used and how many more they would need.



One group actually petitioned our Preschool Director for some sand from the sandbox to accurately render the surrounding environment of the Giza plateau. As you can see from above photo, they did get it!

To wrap up their project, their pyramids were displayed in Loeb Hall, our multi-purpose room, and each group gave a short presentation on their pyramid.