Building with Marshmellows

 

A while back Farmerboy and I watched an episode of Curious George that was all about building bridges.  The kids in the video clip following the episode were attempting to build bridges using marshmellows and toothpicks.  I'd heard of the idea before, but this time I made sure it stayed in the front of my brain.  Farmerboy is the kind of kid who likes projects.  He wants to do things.  Experiments and any kind of construction are generally big hits.

So. Usually Andy does the grocery shopping after work, but I finally managed to get to a store in person and saw a display of marshmellows, and of all things - toothpicks!  I picked up about 4 bags and a couple of boxes of toothpicks, and we were off.

I don't have these out on a shelf.  The marshmellows, along with any creations, are kept in ziploc bags in the pantry.  The pantry is easily accessible to Farmerboy, who can build with marshmellows whenever he likes as long as he picks up afterward.  The only problem is insuring that the construction materials aren't all eaten by the end of the week.

 

Farmerboy's first creations were simple strings of marshmellows and toothpicks which he would test by stringing out over supports made of books, blocks, toys, chairs, etc.  He told me it was hard to build "up" because the marshmellows kept falling over.  One afternoon I asked him if I could build, too, and I built with squares and triangles to show him how he might be able to build higher. I didn't say: "I will show you how...", I just started building.  He saw how I did it, and began to include the same shapes in his building.

 Some marshmellow cubes, or "towers"...

Starting to build a bridge using both squares and triangles, for support.  While building, he hypothesized that he could keep the "walls" from falling in by connecting the marshmellows across the top.

As Farmerboy worked with his marshmellows, he had the idea that he could build a marshmellow "city", with houses and buildings and "power plants".  (The kids have been playing Sim City lately, and "cities" are a recurring theme around here lately.  I have some ideas stewing about that, too.)  He started using some other materials in his construction, like playing cards:

The cards make good platforms for bridges and roofs for houses.  He also wanted the "buildings" to be different colors, so I thought that he might be able to do that with food color paint.  We diluted the food coloring with quite a bit of water and used a brush, and the results turned out not too badly.  But food coloring doesn't really mix too well on the marshmellows; some of the colors get kind of muddy.  Farmerboy also experimented with dunking the marshmellows directly in the food coloring paint, but that results in soggy marshmellows.

 

At this point, somehow all the marshmellows got eaten, so it was back to the store for a few more bags and another gentle reminder that we cannot go through 4 bags of marshmellows in a week and a half (or so).  This time I picked up a bag of small colored marshmellows, too.  (I'd been looking for gumdrops, but I couldn't find any.) 

 

I've been having some technical difficulties with the USB ports on the desktop, so I'm having to figure out a few quirks about downloading pictures onto my laptop.  I think I have some pictures of Farmerboy's latest creations, which are more complicated geometric forms involving toothpicks as diagonals, but they aren't downloaded yet.  

What do I think he's learning from all of this?  Well, obviously quite a bit of geometry.  But also problem-solving skills, science (there's a bit of physics involved in building bridges), art, and arithmetic (he often counts the marshmellows).  It's also good fine motor work.  And it happens to be fun.

To go from here, I bought some neon-colored straws to cut up and use as different connectors.  I would also like to find some gumdrops and possibly some of those candy orange slices.  To extend the "building with food" idea (and because Farmerboy has been bugging me for "little pans so I can learn to cook"), I'm going to bring out my copy of Cooking Art.  This also may finally be the Christmas that we make a gingerbread house, but I'm not promising anything just yet.  

Comments

[Elizabeth H.]

Lovely! My 6yo would love this, too.

[Monique]

Okay, I see Farmerboy sitting there all by himself working diligently. I have to ask, how did you keep the twins and one year old out of his creations? I love for my boys to do these types of things but it seems like the younger ones always mess it up for the big kids--or at least the big kids see it that way!

[Angel]

Monique -- Good question. My husband was just looking over my shoulder and laughed when he saw your comment. He says it's probably divine intervention. ;-) Actually... Farmerboy usually works on his marshmellow cities in the afternoons when the twins are asleep. But if he's working on them when the twins are awake and the twins seem to be expressing interest in what he's doing (yelling, "I want to build a marshmellow delivery truck! for instance), then I let them build with marshmellows, too. They usually only build for about two minutes and then they're on to something else. For some reason they don't like to *eat* marshmellows, which I think is the key factor. And they also like to watch to see how big or long Farmerboy can build.

[Theresa]

Excellent! I am putting this work together today!!! We have done marshmallow building before, but I never thought to make it readily available as a regular work. But why not? Thanks for the inspiration!!

[Fe]

I've also done this with peas. One year we used tinned peas, and the other we used dried peas that had been soaked (probably not so good for having available... if they're not used in a timely fashion they'll start to sprout).

[Erin]

Thanks so much, we have never heard of this, we've just spent time this afternoon building wonderful structures. I also have a child who needs hands on maths, I'm interested to see what else you come up with.

[Amber]

Hi :)
I think this is must for us. I'm nervous about Marshmallow consumption though!
Thanks for sharing.
P.s. I particularly liked how you noted not saying "This is how you do it..." - a great reminder ;)