A Challenge to Start the Year!

Today, as part of our start of the year fun, Room 7 were given a challenge. They were given 8 paper cups, a bunch of ice block sticks, 10 small cups and a small figurine. The challenge was to build the tallest tower that they could, that would support the weight of their figurine. The tallest tower would be the winner.
A big focus of this challenge was 'Relating to Others', which is our key competency focus this term. To work well as part of a group you need to: listen to others ideas, take turns, share ideas and ensure everyone is contributing. These are great skills to have. I asked students to choose their own groups and make sure that they were working with a good range of people and I was very impressed with how students were able to organise themselves.
What a challenge this turned out to be! The word of the day was definitely 'resilience'! There were a range of different techniques and ideas used by all groups and everyone was very positive when they encountered trouble (i.e. - the tower fell down!). The winning tower ended up being 60 cm tall!