Items needed:

Toothpicks

Marshmallows

Grades K-12

Purpose of project to explain building of structures, 3d figures, compression/tension,  the force of gravity and fine motor skills development.

Have the child with your help or alone build a tower

After many tries and the tower falling down we added more support to the sides to go higher. Tell the child gravity is what is making the tower fall down. For older children have them study Newton’s Law of Gravity

Do Wide or narrow  foundations help build higher?

Build Different 3d figures such as rectangular prism, pyramid, and cube. Teach the child the different names and then ask them to point as you call out the different names

Have the child place objects on top of 3d figures to see which one is the strongest.

Don’t let them eat too much marshmallows!!

Jade colored a tower by color abbreviations and filled out her lab report.  I keep a Science journal with pictures of every experiment and activity sheets in a binder. You can get these free Science printables here for your experiment:

Science Behind Experiment:

Compression: force that pulls the marshmallows and toothpicks together