Rocket Cups - 3, 2, 1, Blast Off!!

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?

Paper Bag Fairy Dresses

When I saw the paper bag creative challenge on Tinkerlab I thought of the cute paper bag picture below taken by my friend Stephanie of her son D. 

Inspired by D's Trader Joe's attire we set to work on our own paper bag outfits.

Brown is a nice color and all, but the girls and I decided to add some color to our bags. We cut the bags so that they would lay flat and covered them with paint.

The girls covered themselves with paint as well. (These pictures were so cute I had to include them even though you can see our cluttered floor)

The next day armed with staplers and tape we set to work on creating our dresses. We used the painted paper bags as the bodices of the dresses. A couple of brads and small rubber bands created a simple fastening system.

I used a stapler to attach pieces of tissue paper to the bottoms of the dresses. For A's the tissue paper was attached full length to create a long skirt, for G's I ripped along the length of the tissue paper and attached so that she had a short ruffled skirt. While I stapled, the girls crumpled the tissue paper to make it bunched and fluffy.  After attaching the tissue paper A tried hers on and discovered that she couldn't sit down, I had shorten the paper bag bodice by about 6 inches then reattach the tissue paper. I guess I should measure before charging ahead on a project.

A made flowers out of tissue paper she ripped and twisted together. Apparently smashing the tissue paper is important in making the flowers - when mine didn't look right A squashed it around a bit and it looked much better.

While constructing the outfits the girls decided they were fairy dresses, so A cut some wing shapes out of another paper bag then helped her little sister scribble on some pretty colors. After some difficulty attaching the wings with staples I finally used some clear packing tape which worked quite well.

The dresses turned out great and the girls loved them.

The dresses inspired a lot of spinning.

Cooking in the dresses was fun too. (I'll post this yummy and super easy candy recipe later this week)

The dresses where even good for doing chores like putting away silverware.

Who knew paper was so much fun. What is your favorite thing to make with paper?

 

Car Ramps!

We made these super easy car ramps for G's birthday, they were a big hit and we've been playing with them for days. We took a long cardboard tube and sliced it in half them propped it up on a box. The longer the tube the better. I had some long tubes from large rolls of paper at work, but wrapping paper tubes would work as well. We set the ramps on a low table so the cars race down the ramp and fly off the table hopefully landing in a box on the floor. If the ramps are aimed just right you can get the cars to collide in mid air. We found that some cars went a lot faster and farther than others which started a discussion about friction and weight. What fun, the simplest things are the best.

What simple items do your kids like to play with?