Structures and Systems

This week we have been talking about structures and systems. We did two experiments this week to better understand structured. 

 Today we had quite a lot of fun making out own structures. First, I gave the kids the challenge of making a tall structure using just toothpicks. Of course this was very hard to do!  Then I gave them time to make a tall, strong structure with tooth picks and marshmallows.  This task was a bit easier, but still a brain teaser for sure. Everyone did very well, but their structures weren't as tall or as strong a they could have been. We revisited things  that you could do to make structures stronger. You can add things or just modify things to make structures stronger.

 We learns that arches, domes, and triangles make structures stronger. We also learned that you can fold, twist, or fastened things to te structure to help it hold.

 Here we are at work on our structures:

These are the first structures we made:

Here we are strategizing and modifying our strucures: