Spanny the Beaver Builds a Bridge

Spanny is a sturdy, friendly beaver with a round tummy, a flat paddle tail, and a gentle buck-toothed smile. And Spanny knows all about GAPS.

Sometimes, in the path you build for Brick the badger, there is a dip - a little gap where the ground drops down. And Brick stops at the edge and looks across and thinks, “Oh! I can’t step over that big gap.”

But Spanny can help! Spanny does not fill the whole dip up. No, no. Spanny does something clever:

“Lay a plank ACROSS!” she says, patting a long flat brick with her paddle tail. “One flat brick, laid across the gap, makes a little BRIDGE. And now - walk right over!”

Watch Spanny work. Here is a gap, too wide for Brick to step. Spanny picks up one long, flat brick. She lays it down across the gap - from this side, all the way to that side. And tap-tap-tap - it reaches! Now it is a bridge. Now the gap is spanned. And Brick walks right across the top, over the dip, safe and easy. Across we go!

A grown-up can play too! Make a little gap on the floor - between two cushions, or two books. Then lay something long and flat across it, like a ruler or a strip of card, to make a bridge. Walk your fingers across it, like Brick: “over the gap - across the bridge - safe on the other side!”

When Spanny’s plank is laid and Brick walks across the bridge to the other side, Spanny slaps her paddle tail with a happy SPLAT and beams. “Spanned it!” she cheers. “One flat brick across, and over he goes!” And she feels the cozy, sturdy gladness of a beaver who built a bridge so a friend could cross.

A gap in the way? Lay a plank across. That’s Spanny.