It’s been my experience that students LOVE labs that involve candy. Whether you are teaching one on one with a homeschool student or a group of students in a classroom or co-op, the moment that the rustling of a bag of candy is heard, all eyes are on the prize.
One of my most popular products that I give away for free is the Pumpkin Chunkin’ Catapult activity. It’s an engaging STEM activity where students build a catapult from instructions, then test, record data, and then choose something to modify about the design that they predict will make the pumpkin fly further. It’s a hands-on engineering experience with physics properties and candy!
This activity works for upper elementary, middle school, and high school. It’s great for those days right before a holiday, such as Halloween, when focus and engagement are hard to come by. The materials needed to build each catapult are jumbo craft sticks, rubber bands, a plastic spoon, and a candy pumpkin for each student or student group. Other than printing the student lab and perhaps creating a demo catapult, there is not much else to prep other than having the materials available for students to gather. If students are younger or time is limited, it might work well to have the materials already divided into small bins or baggies to hand out. Then you can sit back and watch their engineering minds at work!
Sign up to download the Pumpkin Chunkin’ activity for free here: Pumpkin Chunkin Activity. Check your inbox (and possibly spam folder) for the email, then click the button in the email to start the download. Have fun chunkin’ those pumpkins!
