Activity summary

Students will work in teams to create a tower out of dry spaghetti strands and marshmallows. They will experiment with angles and shapes to find out which works best in creating the highest towers.

Learning intentions:

Students will...

understand that different angles and shapes can be used to provide strength in a built structure.

Success criteria:

Students can...

experiment with different angles and shapes when building a structure
work collaboratively under pressure.

Activity guides and printables

Activity details

This lesson is designed to build students’ competencies in the following skills:

creativity
collaboration
communication
curiosity
problem solving
social skills

Australian Curriculum (v9.0) content description:

Year 4 Maths:

Recognise ways of measuring and approximating the perimeter and area of shapes and enclosed spaces, using appropriate formal and informal units (AC9M4M02)

Relevant parts of Year 4 Mathematics achievement standards: Students use scaled instruments and appropriate units to measure length, mass, capacity and temperature. They measure and approximate perimeters and areas.

NSW Syllabus outcomes: MA3-10MG

General capabilities: Critical and Creative Thinking, Numeracy, Personal and Social Capability

Several packets of dried spaghetti (each group will need 15 lengths of spaghetti)
Several packets of mini marshmallows (each group will need 30 marshmallows)
Table space for the construction of towers

This is a Cool+ lesson.

Level of teacher scaffolding: Low - The teacher will introduce the task and distribute materials at the start of the activity and observe the constructions at the end of the activity.

We don’t have any related professional courses for this lesson at the moment, but we do have heaps of other Cool professional learning here.

Meaningful Moments: Marshmallow and Spaghetti Architects

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Summary

Learning intentions:

Students will...

Success criteria:

Students can...

Activity Guides and Printables

Activity Details

Skills

Curriculum Mapping

Resources Required

Additional Info

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