Building Structures with Candy Hearts

Welcome back for another STEM Saturday! We have been having a blast this week getting into our Valentine candy and getting prepared for the holiday. If you are a regular here, you know we love to build with candy. We have built with gumdrops, candy pumpkins, and now candy hearts. This activity is perfect for all ages and takes only 2 minutes to set up.

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Building Structures with Candy Hearts

Building structures with marshmallows is a classic engineering project for all ages. We absolutely love building with toothpicks and candies. It is quick and simple and loads of fun! Normally, we do several challenges along with our building, however this time around, the boys wanted to create real items. You can choose to lead your children in an activity or let them freely explore like I did.

Setting up the Experiment

Set-up was super simple. I simply placed one container of gummy hearts out on the table with a cup of toothpicks and let the boys explore on their own. It was as simple as pouring the candy in the dish.

Materials:

Toothpicks

Gummy Hearts

Timer {optional}

Measuring tape {optional}

Building Structures with Gummy Hearts

Building 3D Shapes | One simple activity you can have your child try is making 3-dimensional shapes such as cubes, rectangular prisms, pyramids and much more.

Counting Hearts | It is easy to incorporate math into this activity by counting the hearts they use, counting corners, counting sides and even faces of the 3D object.

Measuring Shapes | Using a measuring tape or ruler, have your child measure the height, width and even the sides of the shapes they create.

Free Form Creations | One of the coolest things to watch is a child’s imagination on the loose. For us, one child made a 3D heart, while the other made a truck complete with wheels.

Run out of toothpicks? No worries! The boys loved just creating symmetrical stacks with the candy hearts.

Do you have a favorite Winter Science Experiment? I would love to know! Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram or subscribe by email. I can’t wait to hear your ideas.

TIME FOR STEM SATURDAY BLOG HOP!

Every Saturday we will get so many wonderful ideas linked up from around the web that we have decided we want to feature some of these great ideas. That’s why every Saturday, I will pick from the posts linked up and feature my absolute favorites. This might be a hard choice to make, luckily you can always head over to last week’s post and check out more great science resources!