Minute to Win It: Winter Celebration!

The day before winter break always gets me.  It appears tradition in the school is to rotate from each room and do something different in each.  Year 1, made snowflakes for Sandy Hook.  Year 2, made cards for family/friends/teachers.  Year 3, totally stepped it up a notch!

Searching around my favorite Pinterest, I found inspiration!  Minute to Win It was conceived!  I narrowed it down to 6 games we would play
1. Do you want to Build a Snowman!
2. Stack 'em Up
3. M&M Movers
4. Holiday Card Scoot
5. Marshmallow Toss
6. Face the Cookie

So I set up the classroom with a spotlight table where each team had their place then in an arc, there were two tables where the teams could sit together. When students walked into the room, I simply assigned them a team and that is where they sat!  It was actually easier than I had expected.

First game, building a snowman.  The object was to stack 3 mini marshmallows, the team that had the most still standing at the end of 1 minute wins!  Biggest problem, the snowmen would fall over.  It took a special technique to get them to stick!

Second game, cup stacking.  The previous week, we had done an unplugged coding activity with cups so I had plenty of cups that are usable for drinking. The students were given a stack of cups and they had to make a perfect pyramid and back to the stack using only 1 hand.  If any cups fell over, they had to start again. So fun!

Third game, M&M movers.  The object of the game, pick up M&M's using only a straw and put them in a cup (had a different size left over cup from our week of coding) This may have been my favorite game because it was fun to watch! The most in the cup at the end of 1 minute was 35 I believe.  WOW!

Fourth game, getting the holiday card to hand off the end.  This was way harder then I had expected!  They were given a stack of 4 cards and they had to blow through a straw and get the card to hand off the edge without it falling off the table.  I had collected holiday cards from home and other teachers for this.  When I was done with the cards, I gave them to NJHS to repurpose. 

Fifth game, marshmallow toss.  The object was for 1 player to toss a marshmallow through a hoop (aka a piece of foil shaped like a circle) into a bucket.  This required a little bit of skill and a whole lot of communication between the partners.  It was pretty interesting to see who really excelled at this, the one you least expected!

Last but not least, the facing the cookie!  The object was to start with a cookie on their forehead and shimmy it down to their mouth.  What a hoot!    I ended up having the entire team up to the table and do a relay out of it.  There was one student who did it in no more than 4 seconds... AMAZING!

Hope this has inspired you to step up your winter party!  Middle schoolers loved it!