Monday, December 21, 2015

Rockets and....chalk?

    This last Tuesday, we had our final 2015 visit from the folks at Hilltop YMCA for our Youth Creator Space time.  We started off drawing what we thought our own unique rocket ship would look like.  The kids were given plenty of time to brainstorm!


    Mr. John and Ms. Meghan then had the kids create their own rocket ship using the materials we had - paper, felt, plastic, tape, glue, scissors, etc.


    The end result was some pretty cool designs, including a box-shaped ship and a cylindrical ship (with nothing else attached to it).  We once again attempted to launch our ships as far as we could, with a couple even making it as far as Pluto!



 Ms. Sarah's class went outside for the day - a bit chilly but not too bad - to experiment in making chalk rockets! This experiment is typically done with film canisters, but I found it worked equally well with silly putty containers where the lid just pops off.

  1.  To start we combined equal parts cornstarch and water in to take up about a third of the container and stirred it up .
  2. Our next step was to crush up an Alka-Seltzer tablet (we used 2 per rocket because our containers were larger)
  3.  We dropped the tablets in the cup and closed it up quickly to contain the reaction
  4. Finally flip the cup and stand back!
Check out our kids below!


With our leftover ingredients we decided to make some chalk paint, We combined the water and cornstarch again but this time with food dye.After letting it dry a little, the kids were able to use the products to write their names all over the place!  Don't worry mom, it comes off easily!  For more info, check out this website!


    And so another day came to a close after we created, we combined, and we enjoyed the results of science!  Starting in January the Hilltop YMCA crew will switch classes to work with Ms. Sarah's 2nd and 3rd grade class; we're excited to see what they have in store!

- Steven

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