With this post and $34 you can host a sticky sweet and innovative building program.
Supplies (for about 60 participants):
- Toothpicks (Box of 800) – 5
- Mini-marshmallows (16 oz bags) – 8
- Wet wipes
Prep work: Purchase supplies and pull books for display. Some good topics to display: constellations, buildings, houses, cars, and construction.
Room setup: Tables with or without chairs and a book display at the front of the room. Cut open the long side of the marshmallow bags and put them in the center of the tables and pour some toothpicks into a flat tray.
Format: One hour long open house.
As families arrive welcome them to the program and let them know that they can build whatever they would like. Point out the book display in case they would like to find inspiration there. We had over 60 people attend and many stayed the entire time working on their projects. Some people wanted to take them home so have paper bags (large and small) and paper plates on hand. The prep is super easy for this fun and engaging program!
Abby Johnson
We just did this activity with our Afterschool groups and they LOVED it. It surprised me since I thought they might just want to eat the marshmallows, but they actually had a blast designing and creating and they were super creative. To make it work for outreach, we made up a little baggie for each of the kids with around 15 mini marshmallows and 20 toothpicks. That made it really easy to distribute to the kids. I love the idea of doing this as a family program! Thanks for sharing!
Christina
I absolutely love this idea, and will try and do this during one of our School Holiday programmes this year! Thanks for sharing you guys! 🙂
Kelly Doolittle
We did this at TCPL for a smaller group of after school kids and it was a huge hit. We also had so much left over that we put the supplies out for a passive program and for about a week, the patrons just went to town! We put their creations on display, which the kids loved. Plus, we got lots of positive feedback from the grownups, too. What an easy and fun way to encourage creativity through engineering and physics without the kids even knowing:) If you haven’t tried this one yet, check it out!