Use these questions to check students’ understanding and stimulate discussion:

1. What should happen when Cookie Monster eats cookies?
(Crumbs should fly all over.)

2 How were the cookies when Lara first made them?
(as hard as rocks)

3. How did Lara engineer the cookies to work better?
(Answers will vary.)

4. Do the cookies have yummy chocolate chips? Explain.
(Answers will vary.)

Go online to print or project the Reading Checkpoint.

Materials: 10-15 round, flat cookies (such as Oreos) or round plastic disks for each group of kids; pencils; copies of the skill sheet

Overview: Kids use teamwork, patience, and engineering skill to stack round objects like cookies as high as they will go without tipping over.

Directions:

1. Before the lesson, gather enough round, flat cookies or round disks for each small group of students to have 12-15 to build with. (Have extra if you allow snacking!)
2. Remind kids that Lara had to engineer Cookie Monster’s cookies. She had to figure out how to make them.
3. Give students their engineering task: Cookie Monster is coming to the city. He will be amazed if he sees cookie towers all around him! Can kids build some for him?
4. Talk about what it will take to stack cookies high without having them topple. Place them carefully, make sure the tower is stable before adding more, etc.
5. Pass out the skill sheets, and send kids to their workstations 6. How high do kids think they can go? Record predictions and results on the skill sheets.