Warm Up (20 min)

Vocabulary

This lesson has one new and important word:

Persistence - Say it with me: Per-sis-tence

Trying again and again, even when something is very hard

Try, Try Again

• Does everyone get everything right the first time?
• When I was a baby learning to walk, did I stand up and run off on my first try?
• Sometimes, the best and most useful things to do are the hardest to learn.
  • It can take a while to learn hard things
  • If you don't do something well at first, does it mean that you never will?
  • Can you think of something that was hard at first, but that you can now do pretty easily?
    • Walking
    • Talking
    • Riding a bike
• When you fail at doing something, you get a hint at what went wrong. You just need to look for it.
  • If your bike tips over, next time you need to work on balance.
  • If you're filling a balloon and it pops, next time you need less air.
• Think of the mistakes as chances to learn how to do something better next time.

Main Activity (20 min)

Building a Foundation

Have you ever started on a task, then discovered that it was much harder than you thought it would be? Hard tasks can make us want to give up, but if we stick to our goal and keep trying, then we just might make something better than we’ve ever made before!

In this challenge, we’ll work to construct towers that are strong enough to hold a textbook for at least 10 seconds, using everyday materials.

Rules:

• Use only the supplies provided to build a tower.
• The tower can be any shape, but it has to be at least as tall as the paper cup.
• The tower must support the weight of a book for a full 10 seconds.

Directions:

1. Divide students into groups of three or four.

2. Explain the rules of the challenge, given above.

3. Provide each group with limited supplies and make it known that they will get no more.

4. Challenge the class to think ahead to the problem and plan out their method of building their first tower.

5. Encourage students to begin building, then have them alert you when they think they’ve met the challenge described by the rules.

6. Test each structure. Is it taller than the cup? Does it hold a book?

7. If not, have students enter a cycle of planning, fixing, testing, and planning again until the challenge has been met.

8. Congratulate the students as they succeed and take pictures of the successful towers!

Wrap Up (10 min)

Flash Chat: What did we learn?

• Were you proud of what you made?
• Do you think you could make a tower as tall as a chair that could hold a person?
  • How many gumdrops do you think you would need?
• Was there a time that you thought about giving up?
  • How did you get past that feeling?

Journaling

Having students write about what they learned, why it’s useful, and how they feel about it can help solidify any knowledge they obtained today and build a review sheet for them to look to in the future. We provide a Think Spot Journal - Reflection Journal as a basic template for students to use as their daily journal.

Journal Prompts:

• What was today’s lesson about?
• How did you feel during today’s lesson?
• Draw a picture of your structure.
• What were some problems you ran into while building? How did you fix these problems?

Extended Learning

Use these activities to enhance student learning. They can be used as outside of class activities or other enrichment.

Try It Again!

Try doing the same activity with different materials.