The First Week!

The Marshmallow Challenge! On their first day, students were challenged to build a structure out of spaghetti noodles, tape, string and one marshmallow. The marshmallow goes on top and they have 18 minutes to complete their structure. When the time is up, the tallest structure that is free-standing wins! 

This was a Maker Space activity and is also featured on a Ted Talk. Students worked together in groups to complete their structures. Unfortunately, each structure fell over when the timer was up as students did not check the weight of the marshmallow until the end. We watched the Ted Talk together and learned a lot about testing our theories as we continue to build. Check out the link below if you are curious!

The Marshmallow Challenge

Another activity was to give students a picture of a brain. I asked them to crumble their papers and throw them at the board to vent any past frustrations about math. After throwing, they picked up a paper and traced the wrinkles or brain synapses that were formed from hard thinking tasks and struggles. I hope they can remember how deep thinking helps their brains to grow throughout the year! 

Another task was to visualize and draw how they see a structure growing. They drew pictures, shared their ideas and wrote out equations that paralleled with their pictures. As you see below, each student wrote their name with their method to show ownership. We also took a poll of who saw it the same and who saw it differently. Then we looked at how our ideas had similarities and differences. 

Our final activity for the first week was to play with a cube. We looked at a 3 x 3 x 3 cube and if it was dipped in paint so the outside was covered in blue paint, how many of the cubes would have no sides painted, 1 side painted, 2 sides painted, 3 sides painted, and so on. 

 Students built sugar cubes to model a 3 x 3 x 3 cube and colored the sides with markers. Some groups organized their cubes into piles after coloring the sides. Every group created a poster to show their thinking along with a table that showcased their results. 

 At the end, we shared our results on the board for all to see. After the 3 x 3 x 3 cube, students found solutions for the 1 cube, 2 cube, 4 cube, and 5 cube. Groups that were finished were given a challenge to find the equation that would model the scenario and work for a n x n x n cube. 

We went through five different activities along with positive messages about learning mathematics that hopefully will stay with the students all year long! I am excited for this coming year and pray my students will be encouraged and challenged each individually to do their best and press on! 
These activities come from Jo Boaler's website: Week of Inspirational Math