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well, i teased you a bit yesterday about this post. while we were playing playdoh the other day, Bear started to get a little bored. he had set the spoon on the mound of playdough like you see in the pictures. and then randomly, that little light above my head went off.
i baited him a bit and asked, do you wanna see something really cool? of course, he was down for that. so i put the playdoh ball we had made onto the spoon and hit the handle. the ball went flying across the room equalling instant laughter and excitement! one example was all he needed to get our makeshift catapult to work for himself.
another bonus of this activity was that we were able to study mechanisms (not matter how roughly made) and their parts….
explore cause-and-effect….
and make hypotheses, then test them to prove or disprove them. in the case below, we were trying to find out with ball would go farther, the big one or the little one. we did them at the same time so that they got hit just as hard. then we switched their positions.
this activity lasted almost an hour, which in mommy-time is quite a miRacuLOus feAT.
here are some other posts on homemade catapults
Making a Catapult-Looking at Elasticity from Science Sparks
Build a Tinkertoy Catapult from Frugal Fun for Boys
Build a Tinkertoy Catapult from Frugal Fun for Boys
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What super fun Andie! My son will love this idea ~ and we just made 3 new batches of playdough today 🙂 (he had to see what would happen to the older batch when he added water!) Love Bear's grin!!
Oh my gosh, I can't even tell you how glad I am I found your blog through Pinterest today! I guess I know where I'm going to be exploring during naptime today. 🙂
How fun is this! Play doh would be a lot of fun to launch.
That's some serious altitude! Looks like a lot of fun – and I love all the colors 🙂
I love it when science can be so easily incorporated in play. 🙂
My son would have a great time with this activity!
Wow an hour! This looks great fun. I bet that's what