Week 2: Paper and Straw Rockets

So after the ups and downs of week one, week two has been a little less eventful but just as much fun.

This week I would like to share with you our attempts at paper and paper rockets as ideas shared by Picklebums. Kate, who created Picklebums, blogs about children’s activities, parenting, recipes, living sustainabily and lots of things in between.  The paper rockets we created were based on her printable paper rockets.

 

For this activity you will need:

• Paper

• Pens or pencils to decorate

• Scissors

• Glue

• A pencil to wrap your rocket around

• Straws

Firstly we cut our paper so that it was approximately 5cm by 15cm. I cut one this size as an example and then let the children cut their own, jumping in when needed to help those still developing their cutting skills.

Each child then decorated their paper on one side with a pattern or drawing of their choice.  Once it was decorated they placed it decorated side down on the table and spread glue along one of the long sides. Then starting at the opposite long side they rolled it up with a pencil in the centre creating a tube once the pencil was removed.

Then they flattened one end of the tube, folded it over and glued it down. The final step was to place it over a straw, inhale and blow into the straw to make it fly.

 

The making and creating took only a few minutes even for the youngest members of our group but the flying and scientific inquiry that developed kept us busy for nearly 2 hours. The children started out by seeing which one of them could blow their rocket further but then their natural curiosity lead them to wonder if the rocket was shorter would if fly further, what would happen if they used tape instead of glue, did it fly better inside or outside, did the type of paper we used make a difference and how could we record all of the answers.