Cork Rockets

Here is a fun science activity for the outdoors.  You can create these rockets from household items.  The idea for the cork rockets came from Zoom's Lemon Juice Rockets.  We found vinegar to work much better than lemon juice when creating the blast off.

Water Bottle Shooter

Here is a real simple project that the kids will love. An adult should cut off the top of a water bottle so that you have just the part where you screw the cap on with a little bit extra. An adult should also cut off the neck of a balloon. Now just duct tape the balloon onto the water bottle top. At first we tried it with marshmallows (safety first - haha!). That was fun but not as fun as using small tin foil balls. Go outdoors and shoot the tin foil balls - they go really far! Make sure you don't point it at anyone - it would not hurt too much but you wouldn't want "to shoot your eye out". You can talk about projectiles and try shooting different objects. Observe how objects that weigh more or less travel in different paths.

Finished Product

Starting out with some recycled cardboard, duct tape and a broken toy truck, they completed their homemade robot. They were super proud of themselves as was I.



They were able to stick the refurbished car inside the cardboard robot. Where the wheels used to be on the car, they attached some pipe cleaners with handy dandy duct tape to make the arms spin. This was a great project that encouraged:

• creativity
• fine motor skills
• open ended play
• basic understanding of how an electronic toy works

Here is a video of the robot in action. Look how proud they are!