Team Building Activity - building structures

 
The beginning of school is all about creating a classroom community. What better way then to work in small groups to build a structure?
 
Here's what we did.  First, I created 5 bags with spoons, plastic cups (Dixie size), paper clips, wire, straws, paper plates and tape.
Then I pulled sticks to create random grouping....after all, we are supposed to learn to work together with ALL of our classmates. I did work it out so there were two girls and two boys in each group. 
 
Students were asked to work together to create the tallest structure possible. They had to work together and had a time limit of about 15 minutes. We stressed that this was a challenge, not a competition and at the end of it, we would congratulate the winners of this challenge.  Bad sportsmanship in my classroom is NOT tolerated.
 
Enjoy the photos and see how simple this would be to recreate in your classroom this week.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Popular posts from this blog

A Novel History of Psychology

Image
BOOK REVIEW: Vanessa L. Ryan, Thinking Without Thinking in the Victorian Novel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012) ——————————————— Science and (the study of) literature are growing closer together. From  Stanford's Literary Lab  and a recent New York Times piece on the Digital Humanities  to reading Austen in an MRI machine  and so-called " Literary Darwinism ," there's both controversy and a certain cache (and maybe even a little cash) in bringing scientific techniques and the study of literature closer together. This is your brain on Austen ( http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/september/images/mri_reading_news.jpg ) So what about the study of science and the study of literature? History of science, say, and literary history? The short answer is that it's happening in English departments, but not so much in History. Why? More on that below. Work on the interplay between science and literature has been dominated by scholars of the Victorian novel. G
Read more

Chocoalate...Sink and Float

Image
What's better than chocolate?  not much! Here's another experiment brought to you by Candy Experiments.   Most candy sinks in water, because sugar is denser than water.  But some candy floats. Why? This experiment is so easy...all you need is some leftover chocolate candy and water.  Drop the candy in the clear glass and observe what happens.  Here's what Loralee at Candy experiments says is happening: "Some kinds of candy, such as Kit Kats, 3 Musketeers, and marshmallows have air trapped inside. This makes them float.  " I have created another recording sheet to go along with this experiment!  Hope you can use it!    
Read more

Pre-science/Prescience and the History of the Future

Just a quick post to direct our readers' attention to this week's themed issue of the New York Times "Science Times" on "The Future of Computing." There are some cool interactive features and a series of interesting profiles on computing visionaries. Given recent posts on scientists and cinema and science and literature , I wanted to highlight this interview with SF author Neal Stephenson. I must confess to not being a huge fan of his prose, but I have recently developed significant academic interest in how science fiction colonizes the future. A big part of history of science as a discipline involves paying attention to how people have envisioned the future and how that vision was received. Why not start bringing more attention to science fiction into that endeavor? There's a reason that the word for having knowledge of things before they happen is "prescience." Someone who is giving this a lot of attention is Patrick McCray. He&#
Read more