Marble Mazes

I've started a new weekly program at my smaller library for families and elementary-aged kids.  I call it Thursday Things--meaning every Thursday we will have something going on at the library!  However, the "higher ups" made me assign a topic to each week AND they changed the name of it to "Thumbs-Up Thursdays" (which I really don't like!)  The goal is to have programs that will be very simple--meaning low prep and low cost.   Here's the weekly themes:

1st--STEM
2nd--Art
3rd--Legos
4th--Games
and the 5th in March--Building

So we started off with a super fun STEM activity--Marble Mazes.

Supplies
Cardboard (boxes, tubes...)
Craft sticks (regular & Jumbo)
Paper plates
Straws
Colored paper
3 oz Dixie cups
Masking tape
Hot glue
Scissors
And of course, Marbles.

(We could have probably used a box cutter, but the wanted the kids to the as much as possible on their own).

For our purposes I explained that we wanted the marble to get from one spot to another in an fun and interesting way.  I used the pictures of the completed project from these websites to help get them thinking. (FrugalFun4Boys, another one from FrugalFun4Boys, and BuggyAndBuddy).  I did NOT give them any "instructions".

We had five families (14 people) which is a good size for our small library.  The kids were super creative and very engaged.  They came up with some really fun designs.  One dad really get into the process too!

 Three girls played with this marble maze for about an hour--adding to it, decorating it, racing marbles...It was so fun to watch!

I'm so excited our first program in the series went so well!  I'm excited for the other activities we will be doing through April!