We’re jumping on board a new challenge over at Think! This is their fifth week of challenges, and you can head over here to see other kids’ solutions.
This week, the challenge is to
Place the following materials on the table:
1 bag of marshmallows
2 paper cups
10 paperclips
5 sticks of spaghetti
1 inch of tape
10 inches of string“Suspend” as many marshmallows as possible at least 1 inch above the table.
JediBoy was eager to try the challenge today. Here is his first try, with six marshmallows:
He wanted to stack more in a similar way, but they wouldn’t stay put and he started to get frustrated. I suggested he stack them a different way, so he tried stacking them vertically:
This was even more frustrating, and he asked me why I wasn’t trying anything! So I played around a bit and came up with a “bridge” that used his first idea but added more marshmallows strung along the spaghetti:
This was a bit better, but as you can see from his face, things were starting to get wild. JediBoy hasn’t worked much with challenges of this type. He’s not used to having set parameters but no rules (use only these items and nothing more, but it doesn’t matter how you use them). Typically, we’re either totally free flowing (use whatever art supplies you want in any way you choose) or we’re doing something with more clearly defined rules (playing a board game or doing a puzzle). He kept asking either to use more supplies (bigger cups, longer string, more tape, toothpicks) or asking me to tell him exactly what to do. He got pretty upset that my “bridge” had more marshmallows than his, and he chose to leave the room for a while. He came back, obviously upset, but asking me sweetly to please help him.
We brainstormed ideas (”I need something that’s stable! None of this is very stable.”) and came up with the idea to cram one cup full, using the paper clips and spaghetti to help hold them together, and then balance it on top of the other cup to raise them all more than an inch off the table. This was fun, squishing the marshmallows together, and JediBoy wanted to use the other items for decoration. Here’s our final effort, holding 16 marshmallows:
This was a great exercise for us, and in the end it was lots of fun. Thanks to Think! for providing the inspiration!
