Elastic Aeroplanes

My brain was a bit stuck on projectiles last night after making the straw rockets, so I created another little activity for the girls to try out today as well. It was easy to make and a complete blast, and worked even better than I expected; the whole family got involved :-) My siblings and I used to play something similar with folded newspaper, except we used real slingshots!
This would be a great game to play outside using tree branches, and I love the way it could be set up anywhere. I'll be adding it to our little bag of travel games I think!

WE USED:

* craft paper
* texta/pen
* scissors
* glue
* elastic
* childrens table (could use any table or something entirely different!)

Cut a large sheet of paper to a width of about 10cm (I used a piece of scrapbooking paper). Fold down your sheet making the folds about 5cm until you reach the end.

You should have a rolled up piece of paper like this.

Fold it in half as shown.

Cut aeroplane shapes from contrasting paper (maybe get your child to decorate them for some extra fun) and glue the tails to the folded paper as shown. Make sure your aeroplanes are facing towards the 'folded' end, not the 'open' end.

To make our launch pad I turned the girls craft table upside down and used two of the legs to tie across some thick elastic. Make sure it's tied very securely, you dont want it coming undone when it is pulled on.
You could easily tie your elastic across the legs of a dining or kitchen table (right side up of course :-D) or the legs of a heavy chair. Tree branches outside would be fun too - be inventive!

We put down a towel for Bubble to sit on and pretended the table was her pilot seat :-)

Hold your aeroplane so that the elastic runs through the middle folded section as shown above. The open end should be facing your child with the elastic sandwiched in between and the folded end pointing forwards.
The idea is that you pull back till the elastic is taut and then let go so that your plane is launched across the room.

Bubble launching her aeroplanes.

They shot all the way across the room and would have gone much further had we had more space!

Daddy showed Bubble how to change her trajectory each time, so the planes shot up, down and straight depending on how they were angled when she let go. Although Squeak was too little to launch any planes herself she loved watching this activity and laughed at every single take off :-)

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.

Slot Together - House and Trees

When I was younger I had a set of blocks that all slid together that you could use to build all sorts of things. Bubble and I had a go at replicating the effect with cardboard during quiet time yesterday - not quite as sturdy but it still worked quite well!

I've tried to explain the process as well as I can, please let me know if the instructions aren't clear enough though!
If you liked this activity check out these Autumn trees over at Mumma To Three Blessings, dont they look fabulous!

WE USED:

* cardboard (we used the side of a cereal box)
* toilet rolls
* scissors
* textas/pencils
* ruler

To build our slide together house I first cut 7 squares of card of equal size. My squares were 8cm x 8cm.

Then cut slits down the sides going a little bit further than halfway. Don't cut too close to the edge or your structure wont be very sturdy as the sides will tear easily.

The pieces will then slot together and you can build your house.

We built the two side walls and back first, then added the ceiling and floor pieces. The two remaining squares we used to create a roof.

You can see here how all of the pieces are slotted together.

Our cute little slot together house :-)

We decided to make some trees to go with our house, these were much easier and less fiddly to make so Bubble was able to do most of it herself.
First I drew some tree top outlines.

Then Bubble coloured them in and I cut them out.

We cut two slits on opposite sides of some toilet rolls.

Bubble was able to slot the tree tops into their trunks.

Three slot together trees.

We had hours of fun with these, I even managed to get dinner cooked while Bubble was entertained - bonus :-D

I love seeing kids creativity when left to their own devices - these wooden dolls had 'climbed the trees' apparently, and needed to be rescued by a fire truck.

Catching Paper Butterflies

Living in an apartment means I have to maximise our outside time every day. We go on all sorts of adventures but the park is a favourite place as we can try out so many activities. I was inspired after seeing this tree on Be a Fun Mum to create something pretty but temporary for the girls to enjoy, so last night I cut out some paper butterflies, armed Bubble with her butterfly net and off we went to enjoy the sunshine today.

WE USED:

* coloured paper
* scissors
* needle
* cotton
* sticky tape
* butterfly net
* trees!

Butterflies cut from coloured paper.

Cotton, needle and tape to hang our butterflies in the trees.

I threaded two to a thread so they would be weighted and 'flutter' in the breeze.

I taped them to the tree branches quite loosely so they would come free when Bubble caught them in her net. I made the thread the right length so the butterflies were about at her height or net height.

The photos aren't too great, but they looked beautiful! The girls were mesmerised watching the trees full of butterflies fluttering around. There was just the right amount of wind to lift and twirl them, just like the real thing :-)

Bubble catching butterflies in her net.

She had so much fun and it was great for her co-ordination and gross motor skills.

Caught one :-)

Squeak exploring the grass in between butterfly watching.

Because of the breeze Bubble really had to work hard to catch her butterflies.

She even climbed a few trees :-D

This is the only photo I have of Squeak catching the butterflies, it was tricky holding her up and wrangling the camera at the same time :-)

It was a magical way to spend a day in the sunshine with my girls, we'll certainly be doing some paper butterfly catching again sometime soon.

“Come play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”

'E' is for Elephant

Well, elephant and egg carton which is what we made our little pachyderms from :-) The girls were pretty excited with these (more excited than they should have been actually, not sure if I should be worried :-D), and found a lot of different games to play with them.

WE USED:

* egg carton
* scissors
* blutack
* marker/texta

Cut a section from your egg carton as shown above.

Turn it over and cut a front panel for the trunk, and a little tail at the back if you want to. One set of 'legs' will be longer than the other two, just fold the ends over to make little feet and even up the height.

For the ears on one of our elephants we cut two more joined egg cup sections and trimmed the sides until they were quite shallow.

Using blutack we attached the ears and added a few details with our marker.

For elephant #2 we cut some ear shapes from the flat card on the egg carton lid. I liked these ones better because we could move them :-)

Two cute little egg carton elephants.