- 1 box of toothpicks
- 1 sheet of paper
- Using a pencil, make an outline of the building.
- Make a line of toothpicks standing vertically on the bottom. This will be the widest row.
- Glue the toothpicks to a sheet of paper, using lots of glue.
- Line up and glue the remaining rows of toothpicks.
- Let dry completely before picking up.
- Now you can make word problems using the picture. For example:
- How many more toothpicks are there in the first level than in the second level?
- How many more toothpicks are there in the first level than in the third level?
- How many toothpicks are there in levels ___ and ___ ?
- How many toothpicks are there in all?
- If there are 75 offices on level 2, how many offices are there likely to be on level 1? level 4?
- If each floor of the building is 12 feet high, and if there are 5 floors per level of toothpicks, how many floors are there in the building? How tall is the building?
- If you like, use a longer sheet of paper and make a taller skyscraper with more levels.
- You might like to color every 10th toothpick to make it easier to count them.