Challenge #5

You can find the this challenge and more at Delightful Learning blog. The original challenges were submitted each week. Since then the links have changed so I have removed them from this post. Visit here to see more about these fun challenges. 

As the boys were discussing their favorite school subjects the other day, Paul said that "my favorite subjects are science and the challenge". So... loser homeschool mom (me ;)), who keeps putting off our challenges, decides to get the nicely organized bucket of challenge materials out and set up a challenge for the boys.

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If you never heard a subject called "The Challenge", you can visit Michelle over at Delightful Learning to get the information.

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The Challenge: to use these materials to build a Leaning Tower

The materials for this challenge: scissors (to be used as a tool), 20 toothpicks, 20 mailing labels and 6 straws .

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Procedure: Build a tower and lean it against the wall- it must touch both the taped line and the wall, yet not touch inside the taped square. The mailing labels may not be taped to the floor or the wall. Points are awarded for the distance between the corner and the first point where the tower touches the wall, and the distance between the corner and the first point where the tower touches the floor.

(the heated debate over the solution begins)

And... it stands for more than 10 seconds (necessary for scoring).

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Scoring:

2 pts. for each inch between the corner and the first point where the tower touches the wall. = 39 pts.

2 pts. for each inch between the corner and the first point where the tower touches the floor. = 15 pts.

Up to 30 pts. for how creatively you used the materials. I think the boys earned bonus points for putting together a tape strip from the top leaning straw to the foundation straw to hold the leaning straw off the wall. = 20 pts (as scored by the boys- I may have been more generous)

Up to 20 pts. for how well your team works together. = 18 (also scored by the boys)

This is actually a challenge redo.

Here is tower #1:  For our first leaning tower- I read the directions, but we started this challenge just as my wonderful nephew arrived to work on my computer, the young man I have been tutoring came by to work on school, and dad arrived home to get the 411 on how dire our computer situation was... the boys were just not in the game that day. Even though they did not understand what they were shooting for and had less than superb attitudes, I actually think they were pretty creative with how they used their materials. None the less, I felt like they missed out on the fun of the challenge- and they really did enjoy the redo.