Kids love hands-on science projects so try this
air experiment with them. Just grab a straw and pull out some leftover
Christmas treasures. Kids Activities Blog loves fun science activities like this!
Christmas Treasures
It is hard to let Christmas go. My son started stocking his treasure box with odd and ends leftover from Christmas just to keep a little bit of Christmas near. I suggested that maybe these odd and ends would make a fun science experiment. He loves science and doing experiments so, he agreed that his Christmas treasures could be used temporarily for an experiment.
What Christmas treasures did we use?
Small gift bag
Empty spool from ribbon
Tissue
Holiday napkin
Balloon
Gift tag
Ribbon
Bow
We gathered the treasures on a silicone tray and talked about which objects he thought that he could blow with a straw across the table. He picked each one up and weighed them in his hand. Then he tried blowing on each object as he held it to see if it would move. He decided that the ribbons would be the easiest to move and the gift bag would be the hardest.
Air Experiment
My son lined up the straw just beneath the ribbon on the Christmas bow. The wind created by his blow seemed to lift the ribbon up a little and helped it float across the table a little like a hovercraft.
In no time he had send the ribbon flying across the table.
My son was right. The ribbon was really easy to move.
When we tried the small strand of ribbon, it didn’t fly as quickly. It did move, but it never had the lift that the bow did.
How did the bag do? I was very difficult to move. There was a lot of huffing and puffing to get it to move even just a little bit.
The other objects made it across the table. We found the tissue was hard to control. It kept flitting all over the place. The napkin was a challenge to get started but did move across. Turning the napkin so he could blow into its crease was the solution my son came up with to get it moving.
I bet you have lots of Christmas or other holiday odd and ends that you could use to try this experiment.
More Kids Activities
This air experiment is so easy to do. We love that it can be done with Christmas treasures or any household objects you already have lying around. For more great kids activities, try some of these ideas:
I got a kick out of it saying “Christmas treasures,” and I’m sure it upped his interest in the activity.
Have you tried the paper bag (or balloon) and book trick? If you put the paper bag under the book with a bit hanging out, then ask your child to blow the book with the straw, they can’t. You then blow up the bag and the book rises up (hence you have moved the book). You can then use this to explain things like airbags, hovercrafts etc.
Love the ideas you have above, think I might be getting out the straws tomorrow for some fun science.