Toothpick marshmallow tower

This was most definitely one of her favorite activities of all time!  She was focused and so excited.  I was also impressed that she figured out how to build the shapes with the toothpicks and marshmallows on her own. Marshmallow building with toothpicks Similarly, if you are having the students create an offensive weapon, and you’re having them measure results on that, they can calculate how many total marshmallows from the opposing team’s wall they were able to knock down, or again, they can use a percentage of the wall they knocked down. To make this challenge a little bit more difficult, I would definitely go with using volume measurements, percentage of the wall that is standing pre and post attack. I would add an offensive tool as part of the challenge, and you can even think about adding a criterion to have a working drawbridge, or at the very least, an entrance.

Some children even filled the toothpicks with marshmallows and then stacked them. It was very rewarding to hear students talking as they built and noticing the geometric shapes that they were creating (cube, triangle etc.) Letter O Preschool Activities (And Free Preschool Lesson Plan: O is for Ocean!) Another very strong shape is the cylinder. A single cylinder can be very strong, just not stable. If the base of the C.N. Tower were cylindrical, it would fall over with the first wind gust. However, if you make the base of a structure out of four cylinders, positioned in a square about the base of the building, then it would be extremely strong and stable.

Parents can build on that excitement with this fun and simple STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) project. Creating structures out of marshmallows develops kids’ engineering skills and enhances their critical thinking. Making the Pyramids 2. Start building!  Experiment with different shapes.  Which work better, triangles or squares?  If you want to add a time limit, you can.

Since I was prepping the activity for Big Brother (age 6.5) and Middle Brother (age 5), I printed both sets and made copies of the follow up record sheets. Premium resource Sharing kids activities for fun and homeschool!