Marbles, Marbles, & More Marbles!

I came across something amazing recently. Have you seen Marble League?! If not, I would suggest you check it out immediately. It is amazing. Fantastically entertaining in that it is just so  absurd. In the time of COVID where sports are at a standstill, it sort of fills a void of sports-watching that I didn’t even know needed to be filled. Essentially, it is a series of sporting events, each fully commentated and treating individual marbles as athletic competitors. Amazing. Seriously, go check it out. 

But what does that have to do with homeschooling? If you know us at all or follow our learning journey, you know that we basically turn everything into a learning opportunity. This was no exception. I honestly didn’t expect such a positive reaction when I showed it to the girls. I kind of thought it would be a one-and-done activity that might lead to a marble run project. The end. But no. Those girls were so into the marble events that the baby required ear protection. There was cheering, and team rivalry, and signs being made for their favoured teams. And then, then came the learning!

First, we were able to talk about the business side of having an idea and running with it, the work that went into those productions, the engineering, the math, the tech required. But how to transfer it to our own learning? In comes the Family Marble Showdown! We decided that we would all order our own team of marbles and have a friendly competition. Then came the problem of who would compete first. Of course, the only way to make that decision was by having a pre-showdown trial with marbles from around the house. We engineered an elaborate marble run. When it failed we re-designed over and over until it worked perfectly. And then we timed each of the girls running their marble down the track. The girls with the fastest time got to choose their Marbles first. And, of course, we made a video of the process for the girls’ YouTube channel. So far in this marble adventure, we have math, engineering, and comtech. But it doesn’t end there! Once the marbles arrived, the girls designed trial events for their new marbles to compete in to decide which marbles of the 24 in the bag would make up their “team” for the Family Marble Showdown. And then they really got going. They decided to all make intro videos for their teams using stop motion animation. They’re planning voice-over scripts to introduce their teams to the public. Then, they got onto Canva (one of our favourite digital creation platforms) and created logos for their teams! The learning has grown. Now we’ve added in English, Art, Graphic Design.

That’s where we’re at so far with our marbles, but we’re not done. The girls are planning for each family member to design an event for all of the teams to participate in, create videos of each event, and more. And it all started with a clever marble video that I thought was fun.
If you watch closely, cross-curricular learning opportunities are everywhere. Even the exciting things that look like pure family fun are rife with opportunities for pure learning. Better yet, this is learning our children will remember forever.