Marshmallow and Toothpick Building Challenge

Set your child up with a marshmallow and toothpick building challenge. Make sure that you measure the height of your structure in a picture and post it to the Spencer County Extension Office Facebook page. We will have winners! This is a great experiment, the marshmallow toothpick building challenge, because youth love to build! Set-up was quick and easy too, just how we like it. 🙂🙂 Be creative!

Supplies: • Marshmallows • Toothpicks • Wood Dowels

Start by building simple shapes for the base- squares and triangles. (The added benefit of this challenge is the fine motor work preschoolers get from pinching those marshmallows and sticking toothpicks in them!) After building a few shapes for the base, you can move onto connecting them to form a wider base (a building principle we learned while tower building is a wide base is a sturdy base).

Then it is time to build up. This was way cool for preschoolers and any other youth! A woman reported that her son went from making flat two dimensional shapes to combining them to form 3-d structures! At this point he stopped worrying about height and started paying attention to design. He was intrigued with how the shapes became something completely new when they connected together! So we can’t wait to see what you all do!

Again Be Creative!

The challenge can evolve into more of an artistic expression than mathematical challenge, which is up to you! Remember, engineering can also be appreciated as an art form with the right mindset! You need to fully embrace this new task of making art with the toothpicks and marshmallows, because we know it is just as educational for your family as building a tall tower would have been.

Good luck and don’t forget to share your pictures with the Spencer County Extension Office Facebook page, with a measurement tool – that way we can see how tall your structures are!

Super Skittle Surprise!

Have your kids tried the skittles science experiment rainbow by mixing skittles with water? Don’t you just love it when you find easy arts + crafts for kids that use minimal supplies you probably already have at home? I do! You need to check out this easy Skittles Rainbow Science Experiment!

Materials Required:

• A plate or bowl… something that is slightly sloped in towards the middle. • Water – Medium temperature tap water worked great for me. The hotter, the better. • Skittles – You will use one bag per time you do the experiment. You could also use M&M’s

(Skittles are included in this kit!)

HOW TO MAKE A RAINBOW SKITTLES SCIENCE EXPERIMENT?

• These simple picture instructions and video instructions (videos are online if you choose to look at them on your own)

• Place your Skittles in a circle around your dish. You could try doing this in different shapes to see what happens. We just tried it by doing a circle.

• Once you have completed the circle add in medium temperature water in the middle. Make sure you add enough to go right to the edge of the candy on both sides.

• Wait thirty seconds to see the colors begin to come out. The color will start dissolving

away from the shell once you add in the warm water.

• Then be completely amazed by your beautiful results! At the end you can have your child

mix all the colors together using a toothpick or their finger. You can discuss how when you mix colors together it becomes a brownish color.

Variations: Older kids can work on patterning. That’s what my 7 year old did here. My three year old just placed the skittles in a circle. It really helped that the bowl I chose had the outline of the perfect circle. This helped her create a circle easily.