marshmallow challenge – Making and Sharing

Marshmallow Challenge in Elfrida

Elfrida Library — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 23:55:17 +0000

This week adults and kids participated in a marshmallow challenge in Elfrida.

This creativity exercise has been done nationwide with school children, as well as Fortune 500 business executives. The challenge is to make a self-supported tower that is as tall as possible using the following supplied materials: 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow.

Three teams took part, and all of them had a standing tower at the end! That is most unusual. The winning tower was 21″ tall.

Kids Maker Day

K-4 students — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 19:04:12 +0000

On March 27, local grade K-4 students gathered at the Portal Library for a Maker Day.

We started with a challenge to design and build a structure using toothpicks and mini-marshmallows.

After that students made their own books. Topics included spring, the seasons, weather, and cooking.

Students’ favorite activity was the photo challenges and digital photography. Below are some of the pictures students took.

We ended the day by making “unbirthday” cards for family and friends.

Pictures by Francisco:

Pictures by Jessy:

Pictures by Journey:

Pictures by Memphis:

Pictures by Emery:

Marshmallow design challenge

karen fasimpaur — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 19:13:57 +0000

On March 9, we conducted a Maker Day with Animas Public School students in grades K-5.

The morning was spent with grade K-2 students. We began with a new marshmallow construction challenge. This one would involve small groups building towers with mini-marshmallows and toothpicks.

Before beginning, we talked about the design process and how real-world engineers begin the process by planning and designing. We talked about what might make for a good tower (strong base) and different shapes we might make (with triangles being one of the strongest structures). Then students were invited to draw a plan for what they might build.

After the designs were done, the building began. Some of the building followed the design, and some didn’t, but this too provided learning opportunities!

After the structures were built, they were put on display for the school’s open house.

Marshmallow challenge

Karen Fasimpaur — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 19:22:09 +0000

On December 8, 2016, 30 grade K-2 students at the Animas Schools participated in a marshmallow challenge.

Eight teams took part, and seven of them had a standing tower at the end!

Towers with marshmallows

Karen Fasimpaur — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 21:10:17 +0000

On Sat., October 22, 2016, we had a marshmallow challenge at the Portal Library.

The challenge is to make a self-supported tower that is as tall as possible with the following rules:

You can use the following supplied materials: 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow.
The spaghetti, tape, and string can be cut up. The marshmallow must remain whole.
The marshmallow (unaltered) must be on the top, and the final tower must be self supported.
You have 20 minutes.

Our winner was the team of Teri Denson and Kathleen Talbot with a tower that was 24″ tall. Three out of four teams succeeded in making a self-supported tower, and we saw some creative approaches.