Balancing Act

In this charming story, two mice are balancing on a seesaw, but then a salamander joins one of them and unbalances it! Luckily another salamander gets onto the other end to make it balance again. This pattern continues with some more animals, until a large bird wants a turn - children might like to predict which of the animals could sit on the other end of the seesaw to make it balance with the bird on it.

 

There are lots of opportunities here for children to play with balance scales or to make their own, and to discuss how they can make these balance with the same objects on each side or with a large object on one side and several smaller objects on the other. This links nicely to the topic of weight, and the concept of adding some lighter objects together to make the same weight as one heavy object. At the end of the story, we see that one side effect of having a heavy weight on each side is that the seesaw might not be strong enough to support the weight...!