Tallest Tower Challenge Using Spaghetti

Discipline: Engineering
Age Range: 5+ (with adult supervision)
Estimated Time: 5-20 minutes
What You Need: Uncooked spaghetti; marshmallows or gumdrops; and a tape measure (optional)

Instructions: Your goal is to build a freestanding tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows. Your tower cannot be connected to anything else, and cannot lean on anything for support. 

What shapes can you create with your spaghetti and marshmallows? 

What shapes do you think will create the strongest tower? 

Try different designs to see what works best. Once your tower is built and stable you can measure it to see how tall it is. Think about how you can improve your tower and try building it again. 

Challenge Options: 

Set a timer to see if you can build your tower in a certain amount of time. 

Can you build a tower that’s at least 15 inches tall?

Have fun and remember to keep trying!

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Community Agreements - Using Google Drawings

Discipline: Team Building and Community Agreements*
Age Range: 10+
Estimated Time: 20-30 minutes
What you need: A computer or tablet with internet access; a Google account (it is free to create one)

*Community agreements are created as a way to establish a mutual understanding or make a set of expectations for all members of a community to abide by. They can be based on many things, such as how to support each community member and how to make everyone feel included. Please see What is a Community Agreement? blog post before starting this project.

Creating a visual community agreement using tools online is a good method for creating a community agreement if you do not have any paper or other crafting materials available.

Instructions:

1. Open your Google Drive and select “New”

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2. Select More → Google Drawings

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3. For this specific example, we will create a sun with community values as the rays. Feel free to get creative during this step, as there are many other shapes and tools available. To create a shape use: Insert → Shape → Shapes

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4. A plus sign should show up once you have selected a shape. Drag this plus sign to create and enlarge your image. You should end up with something like this:

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7. You can change the color by selecting your shape and hitting the fill icon. Select whatever color scheme your community likes.

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6. To create a center word or idea, try using Word Art or a text box. Pictured below is an example using Word Art: Insert → Word Art → Type out whatever you would like in the box that appears. This could be your family or community name, or it could include the names of everyone within your community. Get creative here!

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7. Edit your center word in whatever way your community likes. You can change color or font, just make sure to have the word selected.

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8. You may add in community values wherever you would like as well. For this example, we will add values to the sun rays using text boxes. Click on the T icon (circled below) to create a text box. Drag the plus sign that appears to build the box, and use the dot above the box (circled below) to rotate and fit it inside the sun rays. Type out your community values into the boxes.

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9. You can get even more creative than this by exploring more of the Google Drawing functions. Make sure to listen to the people within your community and allow everyone space to contribute. Your finished product may look something like this:

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Helpful Hints: Google Drive allows for collaboration by multiple people at the same time. Anyone else with a Google account can be added to your document or drawing by clicking the blue share button in the top right corner. Simply add their emails or share the link provided. Sharing will allow all of you to all work on your community agreement at the same time if you have multiple internet enabled devices.

Try creating a loose plan before getting started so that all community members have an open space to share ideas and contribute values before moving to the visual aspect.

If you have access to a printer, you can print out a copy for each community member to keep. If not, making your document shareable is another good way to distribute the agreement to everyone.

Community Agreements - Using a Coloring Page

Discipline: Team Building and Community Agreements*
Age Range: 10+
Estimated Time: 10-20 minutes
What you need: Coloring page (coloring book or online page that you print out); markers, colored pencils or paint

*Community agreements are created as a way to establish a mutual understanding or make a set of expectations for all members of a community to abide by. They can be based on many things, such as how to support each community member and how to make everyone feel included. Please see What is a Community Agreement? blog post before starting this project.

Instructions:
1. Start with a coloring book and choose your favorite page, or find an online coloring page that you can print or draw your own design.

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2. Add some color.

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3. Add values. Have everyone add different values they believe are important for being in a community.

Vision-Blocked Polygon

Discipline: Team Building
Age Range: All ages
Estimated Time: 20-30 minutes
What you need: At least three or more people our choice of rope, string or yarn, approximately 20-30 feet in length; vision blockers (i.e., bandana, scarf, beanie, t-shirt, pillowcase, headband, or a hoodie worn backward)

Instructions:
You and your team are going to work together to use the rope in front of you to create a shape. The catch is that you will be vision-blocked while you do it!

1. Have each member of your team pick a spot on the rope and grab onto the rope with hands out in front of them like a set of handlebars on a bicycle (palms face down, hands out in front on the rope).

2. Once each team member has grabbed onto the rope and put on vision blockers, decide on which shape you would like to make. You can make any shape that you want, but here are some examples to get you started:

   Easiest: circle, square, triangle
   Easier: banana, ice cream cone, tree, hot sauce bottle
   Medium: the letter “Y,” shape of Nevada or California, Pac-Man
   Harder: star, lightning, heart, tea kettle
   Hardest: sunglasses, human body outline, a hand

3. Once you have begun, there is one important rule: You may not take your hands off of the rope! You may slide your hands up and down the rope, but if you bump into someone you cannot go around them.

4. During the activity, you will have to communicate with your team members to try to create the shape. Once you feel good about your shape, lower the rope to the ground. Once you have done this you can take your vision blockers off to see how you did!

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Debrief Questions:

1. How did it feel to be vision-blocked?

2. What was your plan for this activity? How did you come up with that plan?

3. What did/didn’t you enjoy about the activity and why?

4. How did you ensure that everyone knew what was happening?

5. Did you adapt your approach to the activity at any point? How did you adapt?

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Helpful Hints: Start with a less challenging shape and once it is complete, talk about it as a team afterward. This will give your team a chance to talk about what went well, and make an improved plan for the next shape!

With some of the more challenging shapes, you may not get it perfect. Our team took 30+ minutes trying to get into the shape of a star before we decided as a group it was the best we could do.

New Words:

Polygon: Any two-dimensional shape formed with straight lines. Triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, and hexagons are all examples of polygons. The name tells you how many sides the shape has.

Mystery Object

Discipline: Team Building
Age Range: All ages
Estimated Time: 10 minutes
What you need: At least two people, vision blockers (i.e., bandana, scarf, beanie)

Instructions:
This activity will require you to trust a partner (or two) to accomplish tasks with limited senses. Before you begin, make sure that everyone involved is comfortable being vision blocked.

With Two People Available:

1. Decide who would like to be vision-blocked first and who would like to give the directions first. Using a bandana or other materials, block the vision of the designated person.

2. The director will help spin the vision-blocked person around three times.

3. The director will silently choose a mystery object somewhere in the area, then begin directing the vision-blocked person towards it. (i.e., “Forward! Stop! Turn right! Crouch down! Pick it up!”) NOTE: The director may not touch the vision-blocked person. They must direct using only words.

4. Once the object has been retrieved, the vision-blocked person must use touch, smell, and hearing to make observations and try to guess what the object is.

5. Switch roles and repeat!

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With Three People Available:

1. Choose one person to be vision-blocked, one person to speak (speaker), and one person to act (actor). Using a bandana or other materials, block the vision of the designated person.

2. The speaker must stand between their two partners, facing the actor and with their back toward the vision-blocked person.

3. The actor will silently choose an object in the area, then use motions to act out directions for the vision-blocked person to find that object.

4. The speaker will translate the actor’s motions into words, and the vision-blocked person will follow their directions.

5. Once the object has been retrieved, the vision-blocked person must use touch, smell, and hearing to make observations and try to guess what the object is.

6. Switch roles and repeat!

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Debrief Questions:
As a team, try to reflect on and answer the following questions once you have finished the activity.

1. How did it feel to be vision-blocked?

2. How did it feel to give directions or act?

3. What was most helpful to accomplish the common goal? Did you change anything?

4. How can we apply what we learned in the future?

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Helpful Hints: If you can, try to do this activity in an open space!

Make sure to direct the vision-blocked person so that they do not bump or trip into anything.

With three people, the actor and the speaker may want to practice their lefts and rights — it can get confusing!

New Words:

Observations: Something you see, hear, or notice using your five senses: sight, sound, touch, hearing, or smell.
Vision block: a piece of cloth tied around the head to cover someone’s eyes and prevent them from seeing anything.

Create Your Own Journal, Step-by-Step Instructions

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Discipline: Social Emotional Learning
Age Range: 9-12 (all ages with adult supervision)
Estimated Time: 20-30 minutes
What you need: Scissors, rectangular tissue box or any other cardboard box, printer paper, stapler OR needle and thread, sharpie, glue or tape (optional), plus any fun decorations (optional)

Journals are used by many people to pull thoughts, feelings, and ideas out of their heads and on to paper! These ideas can be expressed through words, drawings, pictures, and many other creative ways. Here is one way of constructing your very own journal, with limited resources, to use how you would like!

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Instructions:

1. Cut out the bottom of the tissue box so you have a rectangular piece of cardboard.

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2. Fold the cardboard rectangle in half. You’ve created the cover of your new journal!

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3. Fold one piece of printer paper in half (hamburger style), and then in half again (hamburger style). This should create a small booklet of four pages.

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4. Use this folding method for at least four pieces of paper, then stack the booklets of paper together as shown. When stacking, be sure that the sides that open are with each other and closed sides are together as well.

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5. Place the stacked booklets inside the cardboard “cover”. Align the open-sided pages up with the top edge of the cover. The closed sides of the pages should poke out from the bottom of your cover.

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6. Use scissors to cut off the edge of the pages that poke out the bottom of your cover. All of your pages should be able to open left to right, just like a book. Your journal is almost complete!

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7. Using a stapler, staple your journal together along the folded edge of the cardboard. Keep the stapler as close as possible to the fold so that you can maximize the size of your page. (Don’t have a stapler? No problem; you’ll find instructions in a second blog post for using a needle and thread.)

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8. Your personal journal is done! Use whatever materials you’d like to decorate the cover — stickers, glitter, drawings, paint, etc.

Part 2, Create Your Own Journal, Needle and Thread Binding

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Discipline: Social, Emotional, Learning
Age Range: 9-12 (all ages with adult supervision)
Estimated Time: 10 minutes
What you need: Completed journal from Part 1, Create Your Own Journal, plus needle and thread

Journals are used by many people to pull thoughts, feelings, and ideas out of their heads and on to paper! Here’s Part 2 of creating your own journal and now to bind it using a needle and thread if you don’t happen to have a stapler.

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Instructions (alternative to stapling the spine of your journal):

1. Thread a sharp needle on about 12 inches of thread. Tie off the end of the thread with several knots.
2. Open your booklet to the centerfold of all pages. With a sharpie, mark a dot on both sides of the booklet along the fold, about an inch away from the edges of the booklet. (This dot is where your needle and thread will be going through.)

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3. Now, insert your needle through one of the sharpie marks (in through the pages, out through the cover side), so that the knotted end of the thread is on the inside of the booklet.

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4. Next, poke the needle through the back of the booklet (in through the cover, out through the side of the pages), so the needle and thread come back through the second sharpie mark.

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5. Repeat this pattern several times so that you have a thick band of thread along the spine of the booklet.
6. Tie the thread off with several knots near the opposite sharpie hole from the original knot. Tie the knots just as you did with the starting knot.

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Your journal is now complete!

Weathering Scavenger Hunt

Discipline: Earth Science
Age Range: 10-14
Estimated Time: 20 minutes
What you need: Download the Weathering Scavenger Hunt activity sheet and you’ll need an area outdoors with rocks

Instructions:
Have you ever wondered what causes rocks to break?

In science, we have a special word for when rocks get broken down by nature. It is called weathering. Weathering is the natural process of breaking down rocks and minerals into tiny pieces of sediment.

Did you know that there can be other ways that weathering can break down rocks? They are called Freeze-thaw, water, and vegetation.

Can you guess how these three things break down rocks?

Freeze-thaw making rocks crack

Freeze-thaw is when water freezes and pushes against the rock as it expands making the rock crack. You might have seen something like this happen if you ever left a soda pop in the freezer. What happened to the can?

Water breaks down rocks, so they are round and smooth. Have you ever felt a smooth river rock? The force of sediment and the water hitting the rocks over long periods of time makes this happen.

Water breaking down rocks

Vegetation is a special word meaning plants. Can you think of a word that sounds similar to vegetation? Vegetable!  Vegetation can break down rocks in two ways. One way is then plants grow and push against the rocks causing them to crack. Have you ever noticed that tree roots can creak driveways? Pretty strong, right! Plants can also produce a chemical that breaks down the rocks too.

Vegetation pushing against rocks to make them crack

Now that you know the three different ways weathering can break down rocks go outside and see if you can find:
1. One rock weathered by freeze-thaw.
2. One rock weathered by water.
3. One rock weathered by vegetation.

Helpful Hints: More than one type of weathering can break down a rock. You might see rocks that look like both water and vegetation have broken them down. 

New Words:
Weathering: The breaking down of rocks and minerals into sediment.
Freeze-thaw: When water freezes and pushes against the rock making it crack.
Vegetation: Plant life.

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Photo sources:
Freeze-thaw
Water
Vegetation

Floating Fingers

Discipline: Team Building
Age Range: 7-12
Estimated Time: 10 minutes
What you need: At least two people; the more people you have will make the activity more challenging and fun! A lightweight, rigid object such as a ruler, pencil, hula-hoop, board game box or CD

Instructions:
This is a simple team-building activity that can be modified with a number of household objects. The goal is to collectively lower an object to the ground. Each participant will stand and place their pointer finger out, palms down. The object will be placed on top of all the fingers. Everyone must keep their finger in contact with the object at all times. As a team, carefully lower the object all the way to the ground. If any fingers come off the object or the object falls, restart from the top. If you master this activity with one object, try it with another. See what objects are easier or harder than others. Try it with different numbers of people; the more people, the more challenging the activity will be.

Debrief Questions: Once you have completed the activity, discuss how it went.

1. Why was it hard to lower the object?

2. How did you communicate during this activity?

3. What changes did you need to make to be more successful?

The Science of Snow Melt

Discipline: Physical Science
Age Range: 8-12
Estimated Time: 10 minutes for set-up, then the time needed for the snow to melt
What you need: Snow, a see-through container such as a glass or jar, ruler and salt

Instructions:

1. Fill the container up with snow

2. Bring it inside

3. Place the ruler straight up inside the container, press it down all the way to the bottom.

Observations: (Charts for all experiments are provided as a downloadable PDF below.)

1. Make note of the type of snow you collected. Is it powdery, icy, wet, dry, etc.?

2. Measure and record the height of the snow in your container.

3. Make a prediction about how long you think it will take the snow in the container to completely melt.

4. Measure and record the height of snow in 10-15 minute increments. (More time slots can be added to the chart if needed.)

Experiment Variations:

[Experiment 2] Collect multiple containers of snow (same amount), and place them in various locations (kitchen, outside, fridge, etc.), measure the snow height as you did in the first experiment.

[Experiment 3] Collect various types of snow (if possible) and compare melting times between the varieties by measuring the snow height the same way you did in the first experiment.

[Experiment 4] Collect two containers of the same type and amount of snow, sprinkle table salt into one container and leave the other plain - compare the melting time of the two containers of snow using the same method as the first experiment.

Snow Science:

1. Physical state
   Snow melting into water is a physical change
   Physical changes are reversible - water could be frozen back into ice or snow
   Water exists in all three phases - ice as a solid, water as a liquid, and water vapor as a gas

2. Volume/Density
   Density is the weight of an item compared to the space it takes up
   Snow amount and water amount have the same weight
   Snow takes up much more space in the jar than water
   Snow is less dense than water

3. Melting
   Snow begins to melt when brought inside
   Various temperatures (variation 2) affect melting differently
   The warmer a space is, the faster melting will occur
   The colder a space is, the slower melting will occur