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Fun and Wisdom: The Cup Challenge

Well, the new school year has begun here at Yahl, and the 4/5 students have been off to a real hands-on start. During our first week, we participated in the “Cup Challenge”. This team-building exercise saw our students working in groups of 4 to construct a simple tower of plastic cups:

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Final Structure to build

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seems too easy, doesn’t it? …………………..The catch? Students’ hands were not allowed to come into direct contact with the cups; rather, the children had to coordinate their movements and use a special rubber band tool to construct their pyramid. The photo below shows the starting structure the children had to work with:

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Getting ready: trying the rubber band tool for the first time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this challenge, effective team work was essential: communicating clearly with each other was one of the keys to success:

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“Pull a little more to open the mouth of the tool!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Starting on the second level

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Getting there…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Careful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Mission accomplished!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The exercise was a lot of fun, and also gave us an opportunity to reflect on what makes a successful team. After they’d built their pyramids, the children brainstormed the keys to their success and came up with the following mottos:

* Communicate with each other;

* Include everyone;

* Don’t give up, try again;

* Try different ways;

* Learn from your mistakes.

These mottos were then turned into colourful posters that we will hang up in our room; these posters will help remind us this year of what we need to do in order to succeed – together!

The idea for this activity is from Sciencegal’s blog.

Mrs Pratt

6 Comments

  1. Hi Mrs Pratt, I am Rosalie – Ethan’s grandma. The cup challenge looks really great. I like the idea of teams working together and no hands makes it especially challenging.. I also think the 100 word challenge is a good idea.

    • Hi Rosalie, thank you so much for commenting on our class blog! We are very fortunate that our parent community is supporting our learning in this way: the children love reading your comments, this really encourages them to give their best effort! Make sure you visit us again! 🙂

  2. Dear Class,
    What an exciting and difficult challenge for you all! Working together is so important not just in school but in the family community and with your friends. You can achieve so much with a group of people. Well done to you all. I am looking forward to your next Blog.

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