Easy Marshmallow Stem Building Activity

Kids will love learning more about shapes with this fun marshmallow stem building activity. Building with marshmallows and toothpicks is such a simple concept that gets kids creative while learning.

Marshmallow Stem Building Activity

Check out the list of materials that we use with this activity.

While this is a simple activity of building a hexagon to learn about vertices and edges, you can give your child a packet of mini marshmallows and toothpicks and let them lead the activity. Young children can practice building simple shapes, while older children can move onto more complex engineering tasks, like building towers and bridges.  This is a great activity for people of all ages to enjoy, even working together to create one giant structure.

Create a Hexagon

To create this simple hexagon shape, you will need:

• 7 Mini Marshmallows
• 12 Toothpicks

To create this hexagon, first explain what vertices and edges to your children. In this activity, the marshmallows will be the vertices while the toothpicks will be the edges. You may also want to place a tablecloth down first to help with easier cleaning at the end. First, press one marshmallow onto the end of a toothpick until you have six toothpicks with marshmallows on them.

Lay the toothpicks in a star type shape, as per the picture below.

Now it is time to start building the hexagon. Start using extra toothpicks between the marshmallows. 

Finally, attach a marshmallow to the centre to create the final shape.

Discussion and further activities:

• How many vertices, edges and faces?
• Create other shapes with similar amounts of vertices, edges and faces.
• Create a variety of 2d shapes then move onto 3d shapes

You could even split into groups and see who can:

• create the tallest building without falling
• create the sturdiest bridge without breaking

This fun STEM activity is great for children of all ages, for independent work or group work that could be left open for creative play or have a challenge added to it.

Other Ways to Build

Once children have explored with marshmallows and toothpicks, they could try switching up their supplies. Instead of using marshmallows, they could use:

• peeps
• gum drops or any small time of jelly lolly
• jelly beans
• playdough

Instead of toothpicks, they could use:

• pretzel sticks
• spaghetti
• pipe cleaners
• paddle pop sticks
• straws