Whether you let them have a set number or let them free build it can be extremely beneficial for building their thinking skills. The best part of this activity is how it allows children to think and problem solve to come up with a variety of solutions for the “best” structure. So they asked if they could have equal parts, gum drops and toothpicks. However, the boys noticed that every time they had gumdrops left over. With each new design, he would measure and problem solve how to go higher. Now, he was starting to get some height to his structure. I just loved this first design that Legoman (age 9) made, but he was unhappy with the height, so he went back to the drawing board. This gave them a little more room to engineer a variety of structures. This was a little more fun, but still challenging. Next, it was time to try 10 toothpicks and 20 gum drops. What I loved was how they continued to try new designs to get the highest reach. It didn’t take long to realize that there was not a whole lot they could do with this number of toothpicks and gumdrops. I gave each boy 5 toothpicks and 10 gumdrops and challenged them to build a tower. Option 2: build structures with candy gumdrops and toothpicks. Option 1: build the tallest tower you can with a set number of toothpicks and candy gumdrops. Instructionsįor this experiment, we tried 2 different challenges. This time I put a little more constraints on the challenge to make it a little more challenging. Last time we did this I just put out a small bowl of gum drops and a jar of toothpicks and let my kids go to town. That’s why I thought it would be really fun to take that challenge and make it seasonal again. In fact we even tried the marshmallow challenge with candy pumpkins in the fall. Have you ever seen the Marshmallow challenge? It’s one of my favorite STEM challenges around. After our fall building challenge, the boys were determined to try another activity for creating and engineering, and building structures of their own unique designs using candy gumdrops. If you recall our outdoor tinkerlab and our marble run, you know just how much we love STEM activities around here. We have been having a lot of fun around here with more and more explorations. Its in the stores, on tv, and all over Facebook and Pinterest. Welcome back for another Saturday Science ! Christmas and Winter are here.
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