Thursday, October 28, 2010

Straw Rockets

We saw these on Mister Maker this morning and I knew we had to give them a go - they are so much fun! Bubble was at kindy today so I made them while Squeak had her day nap, I can't wait for the girls to try them out tomorrow. I've been testing them thoroughly, you know just to make sure they were as fun as they look ;-D
I made the girls a frog as well as a rocket just for a bit of variety, I love the shooting star idea they had on the show as well.

WE USED:

* scrapbook paper
*glue
* scissors
* marker/texta
* drinking straw
* sticky tape

The idea is very simple - cut two identical shapes from paper and glue them together around the edges. To launch just insert the straw and blow!

I made the rocket a little differently, using tape to secure a rectangle of paper to the reverse side instead of gluing a backing piece on. It worked really well and with the extra bits of card on the front as decoration it was well weighted when it 'flew'.


The frog I made the same way as seen on the show, I cut two identical frog shapes and glued them together around the edges leaving the bottom open for the straw. The frog launched great but wasn't as well weighted as the rocket, so didn't 'fly' quite as smoothly.

These are great fun, I had a long test run with them tonight and can see they are going to be a hit with the girls already. I think we will have some races to see which goes furthest and get out the laundry basket to see if we can launch our rocket into it.

8 comments:

  1. I missed this one :)

    Roh is a fan of Mister Maker too :)

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  2. Isn't he great! It's the one kids show I actually sit down and watch too lol.

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  3. We LOVE Mister Maker too!!

    This is a great activity! Many children who have speech difficulties need to do blowing exercises as part of their therapy. Keeping kids motivated to blow, especially when it's difficult for them, is a challenge. This is a great exercise, because it's so much fun! It's bound to encourage even a resistant child to blow!

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  4. Thanks Georgia, I loved the idea as soon as I saw it, he makes some pretty cool stuff doesn't he.
    Bubble found it quite difficult to keep a sustained blow going, there was a bit of frustration until she got the hang of it. She has a bit of a speech delay so we try to focus on anything oral motor or language/speech based, I'll have to find more things to do with straws now after reading that!

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  5. I made this, and it didn't seem to work; the air just blew back at me when I blew through the straw... am I doing something wrong?

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    1. Hi Kirsten, that's a shame it didn't work! A few things that might help are to make the straw covering a bit looser (if it's too tight it might not fly off as easily) or maybe try sealing the edges with tape to make it more air tight. Hope that helps!

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  6. We made these and had so much fun! Thank you for the idea! @momshappinessblueprint.blogspot.com

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  7. We have a space themed birthday party coming up, but unfortunately not much space for boisterous games. This though would be perfect! Thank you so very much... Cant wait to try it

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