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February 2nd

 In today's class, we did an activity called the marshmallow tower challenge. Each group is given string, tape, spaghetti, and a marshmallow and the goal is in 18 minutes, to build the tallest tower that can support one marshmallow on top. When the 18 minutes are up, the tower able to stand for 15 seconds without any support and is the highest standing would win. The challenge itself sounds simple, but things did not go so smoothly for my team.

 It sounded like a fun and easy activity at first, but my team's tower was not able to stand for 15 seconds. After the activity, I was dumbfounded being told that we all could have searched up the best method to win, ask for more materials, look at what the other groups were doing and their progress as it was never stated we couldn't do those things, we just assumed it was the rules. 

 I was amazed that kindergarteners were more successful in creating a great tower than most adults and teachers. This is mainly because they try before they think. Mr. Paterson gave an example of this; you don't learn to swim by thinking about it and talking about it, you need to physically do it in order to excel at it and be able to say "I can swim". Children just immediately go into the process of repeating trial and error and look at other groups for better ideas that may work. From this exercise, I want to be more aware to let my inner child take over sometimes because as we mature, many tend to lose this childish side of ourselves, but it becomes a significant strength when in the process of coming up with new and unique ideas. 

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