Balloon Rockets

Today we made a balloon rocket! This is a really easy science activity. You might even have all the materials you need in your house already. 

Supplies: balloon, string, tape, straw

Place two chairs across the room from each other. Measure a piece of string out to be long enough to tie to each of the chairs. Tie the string to one chair, slide the straw on the string, and then tie to the other chair. Put some tape on the straw. 

Blow up the balloon but don't tie it up, just hold it closed with your hand. Attach the tape to the top of the balloon. Yell "3, 2, 1, BLAST OFF!!!" as loud as you can and let go of the balloon (Okay, it will still work if you don't yell...). And enjoy!!

I wish I could have captured Monkey's excitement with this activity but I couldn't hold the camera and work with the balloon at the same time. But there were lots of giggles as we did it over and over and over again. 

The science part of this activity is the idea of thrust and forward motion and energy but obviously Monkey is a little too young for all those terms so we just talked about why the balloon goes so fast... "Because it goes woooooosh so fast!" 

We loved sharing this fun with Daddy and later we're going to make an even longer one that goes all the way from one end of the house to the other end. 

Mar