Spaghetti and Marshmallow Challenge

We have used the beginning of the year in the enrichment classroom to collaborate on various group tasks.  One of the most popular tasks has been the Spaghetti Marshmallow Challenge!  Students in grades 1 - 3 were placed into groups and then given the following constraints:

25 minutes

20 raw spaghetti sticks

one yard of string

one yard of masking tape

one large marshmallow (or 3)

Their task? To build the  tallest structure possible which would support a marshmallow.  

Students jumped right into the challenge--working together, revising, taking risks, learning and then making changes!  This task was based on a popular challenge that is used in schools as well as by businesses and various industries as a team building exercise. Here is a popular video that describes the learning that is happening during this intense collaboration:  http://marshmallowchallenge.com/Welcome.html

I feel that not only did this exercise support the development of classroom collaboration, but it also gave us topics for some very important conversations as we start the year together.  It led to discussions on:

*the importance of hearing and listening to every voice in the group

*the idea that different people have different strengths (some are leaders, some are innovative, some do, some observe,etc) and that we can all learn from each other

*the concept that risk taking and learning from our mistakes will be valued (and required!) as part of our learning experience

 *questions like: is it OK to copy? how can we learn from what we observe in others to improve?

Building collaborative skills takes time, but these types of exercises are giving us some great foundational building blocks!

Here are some of the teams during the collaborative process:

 

Building the Alphabet in Kindergarten

During Kindergarten Enrichment time, we have been working on getting to know the enrichment room space and the various centers that will be exploration options for students throughout the school year.  In order to introduce the centers, we have spent the first three weeks of school using the centers as a space to create letters!  Students have built letters with popsicle sticks, legos, pipe cleaners, clay, stencils, markers, and even their own bodies.  We have taken pictures of our letter creations and these will be made into a classroom alphabet for our wall.

If you were in the room during this exploration some of the things you might have heard included:
"Look I am an 'A' "
"Mrs. Rankin, can I take a picture of my letter?"
"This letter is in my name"
"How did you build that?"
"How can I make a curve with popsicle sticks?"
"I can spell words"
"Our classroom alphabet is going to be great!"

As we move into the second month of school, we will begin using the centers for student interest driven explorations.  Based on the creativity witnessed during letter exploration--I think we are in for an exciting year of learning!

Here are some pictures of our letter building!

Card Towers

The first weeks of school have been full of opportunities for students to work together during their enrichment time.  One popular exercise was time we spent building card towers.  While some students excelled at this activity from the outset, most struggled through periods of frustration and disappointment in their quest to create tall and interesting structures.           

Although this began as another team building exercise, it turned into something equally as important--

an opportunity for students to PERSEVERE.  Students realized that the task was not simple, and that sometimes they would fail---their tower might not stand!  Despite the possibility of failure, we celebrated the attempts and at the end of our time we were each proud of our efforts.  This was a great connection to what real learning should feel like --when we are stretching our minds and our skills we must persevere through the challenge!!!