Miss A has been watching a lot of documentaries on space lately and Miss G loves all things that go (especially if they are loud), so when I saw the
rocket cups in the recent
Family Fun Magazine I know they would be a hit with both the girls.
You need 2 cups for each rocket and a rubber band. The rubber band, cut and attached to the cup, acts as the propulsion system. I poked holes in the edge of the cup using a skewer then poked the rubber band through and tied a knot.
The girls of course had to decorate their rockets before the inaugural flights.
To blast off set the rubber band rocket cup over an unaltered cup and push down stretching the rubber bands. It took A a few tries to get the hang of it, but soon she was showing off her rocketeer skills to her dad. G never quite could get the rocket to actually blast off, she just would push it over the other cup then count down and throw her rocket cup into the air (she was still very impressed with the activity).
After mastering the basic blast off we played around with our elastic toys and found that one of the rockets consistently went higher than the other. We fiddled a bit and decided that the tighter the rubber band the higher the rockets went. Not satisfied with that as the final answer A continued experimenting and discovered that the rockets went higher when they were pushed all the way down over the other cup and that if she didn't push the rockets down very far they didn't go very high. To the delight of my kids our rocket with the tightest rubber band almost hit the ceiling when pressed down fully and launched from the dining room table.
What is your favorite way to play with rubber bands?
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