First Days of School: Marshmallow-Gumdrop-Spaghetti Homework
To begin the school year, we'll focus on building a strong sense of team. One activity we'll use is the popular marshmallow-gumdrop-spaghetti building challenge. As I learned this summer during the Wayland STEAM Institute, it's often great to give students a chance to try out materials and challenges on their own first before embarking on that challenge with a team. So for the first week's homework, we'll give each child a baggie of spaghetti, gumdrops, and a large marshmallow. We'll ask them to try making a tower at home with these materials, and then draw or photograph the tower they made and answer the questions on this page. I think this will be an enjoyable and profitable first week's homework. Do you agree?
Note: This TED Talk will give you an inside look at this challenge.
Spaghetti and Marshmallow Challenge:
We won't likely score or give a 20 minute time limit. I'll "read the students" before making these decisions.
Here's one set of instructions, though I'd like to use gumdrops instead for a number of reasons rather than tape and string.
By Michael W.
