Today consisted of no rules, and no procedures, only FUN! I had a professor at Radford, Richard Bay, who was the most amazing teacher! I'll never forget a lesson he taught me, he said "if you teach them to create something on the first day, you'll probably be their only teacher who doesn't go over rules and procedures, and they'll remember that."
So today, we built, we created, we STEAMed... which brings me to the Marshmallow Challenge:
20 spaghetti sticks, a yard of string, a yard of tape and a marshmallow. The challenge: create the tallest free-standing structure possible. The kids love it because at first they have no idea what to do...
Eventually after utilizing their communication and collaboration skills, they begin to work together to create foundations for some pretty fabulous structures.
Eventually they realize that the super tall tower they built will not withstand the weight of the marshmallow which when placed on top, usually makes the most awesome tower FLOP!
Tom Wujec did a Ted Talk on it and it's definitely worth a watch.
I hope everyone else had as great a day as I did!
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