Jasper Builds a Bridge

Jasper and Freya were making a bridge for their toy train. They put two wooden blocks on the table with a gap between them. A strip of card would make the bridge deck. “How long should we cut it?” Freya asked.

Jasper laid a ruler across the gap. He started at the end of the ruler, before the zero mark. Grandad leaned closer. “Check where your measuring starts,” he said. Jasper noticed a little empty edge before the numbers began.

He lined up zero with one side of the gap. The other side reached twelve centimetres. “The gap is twelve,” Jasper said. Freya moved the ruler away before it slipped. They wrote the measurement in their plan.

Their first card strip was twelve centimetres long. It fitted the gap exactly, but would not rest on either block. One end fell through. Freya caught the train before it rolled towards the edge. “It needs something to sit on,” she said.

They planned for two extra centimetres on each end. Twelve plus two plus two made sixteen centimetres. Jasper measured from zero again. Grandad held the card while Freya marked the cutting line. This strip would overlap both blocks.

Grandad helped cut the new deck. Jasper placed it across the gap, with two centimetres resting on each block. Freya checked the overlap at both ends. The deck stayed level. “Now it has proper supports,” she said.

They rolled the toy train across slowly. The card bent a little in the middle, so Grandad suggested folding the long edges down. Jasper and Freya tried it. The folds made the deck stiffer, and the train crossed smoothly.

Jasper added the bridge to their toy town. Freya drew a small river beneath it. “We needed more than the gap,” Jasper said. He wrote the sixteen-centimetre deck length in their plan. Next time, they would remember the parts resting on the supports.