Buckets of Sand 

The Story of the Three Teams at the Sand Sculpture Festival 

Once there was a sand sculpture festival. It was held in a parking lot, so people had to bring their own sand. People joined teams and worked together. At the end, there would be prizes for the biggest and most impressive sand sculptures.

One team was called the Roosters. The Roosters had a team leader who brought all the sand for their team, 100 buckets. The team leader also brought a plan for what they would build: a sand house. The leader sat in a chair in the shade and told everybody else what to do. “Carry the buckets, mix the sand and water, make bricks, put them together just so, and keep working until it’s done!” When someone else on the team had an idea the team leader said, “No. My sand, my plan.” 

There was a second team that did things differently, called the Work Horses. They didn’t have a leader. To join that team, you had to bring ten buckets of sand. Everyone did the exact same amount of work. Everyone carried their own buckets and mixed their sand and water. Everyone made sand bricks and put them in place. And they all had to work for exactly four hours. But here was the problem. Some people didn’t have ten buckets of sand. Maybe they lived in the city, in an apartment with no sandbox. So they couldn’t join the team. Other people had way more than ten buckets. Maybe they lived next to a beach. Or they had a sandy yard. But they brought only ten, because that was the rule. “But can’t we please join the team with 5 buckets? It’s all we have.” “Sorry,” said the Work Horses. “No fair for you to give less than us.”

Meanwhile, there was one more team, called the Leaf Cutter Ants. On this team, everyone contributed what they could. Some people brought no sand at all. One person brought 30 buckets! (That person lived at the beach.) And everything in between. Also, people helped out in different ways. Some people carried buckets and dumped sand. Some made bricks. Some sat down and did detail work. Others distributed snacks and water bottles. Some held the babies. And others sang and made music to keep everyone’s spirits up. Some people worked for twenty minutes and then had to get out of the sun. Other people worked all day. “Can we join your team? We only have one bucket of sand between us.” “Yes!” “Can we add our idea?” “Yes! Let’s check in with the people who are already working on this sculpture.”

At the end of the day, there were three sand sculptures that hadn’t been there before. Judges came to give out trophies. The Roosters got the trophy for “most impressive.” They had made a sand house big enough that you could walk inside it, with a door and a table and even a sand refrigerator! But every time someone tried to go in, the team leader yelled at them: “Don’t do that! It might break.” 

The Work Horses got the trophy for “biggest.” They had made a giant sand turtle. It was really, really big. (There were 15 people on that team, so they had used 150 buckets.) They had all worked hard. Some of them were in a lot of pain from over-exerting themselves. 

Meanwhile, the Leaf Cutter Ants didn’t win any trophies. They had made a… dragon? It was hard to say. It had a lot of different parts. It looked like maybe a combination of a tree, a mushroom, a dinosaur, a unicorn and a robot, with wings and tunnels and bridges and a few half-covered people! Their sand sculpture wasn’t the biggest, and it didn’t have a working door. But the Leaf Cutter Ants didn’t notice the contest was over. They were having too much fun! The Roosters and the Work Horses stood there, with their trophies, watching the Leaf Cutter Ants play in the sand and eat their snacks and dance to the music. They put down their trophies. They went and joined Team Leaf Cutter Ants.