Activities & Days Out / 9 May, 2018 / Nanny Anita

DIY Parachutes for Teddies: STEM Activity

If there is one activity that EC is always asking to redo it is the egg drop challenge.  He absolutely loves it.  This week rather than launch eggs out of my window to see if they’ll survive the fall, we threw out teddies instead. When I mean we threw the teddies out we were testing out the DIY parachutes for teddies that we had made.

Make sure you follow my stem board on Pinterest for more ideas.  Don’t forget to save the pin for later.

You will need:

• Tea towels/napkins/muslins*
• String
• Scissors
• Cuddly toy

* you could use any bit of material to make the parachute out of.  We even used one of BB’s changing disposable changing mats.

This activity doesn’t have to take very long.  I wanted to spend the whole of our Wednesday afternoon doing it.  However, they were late back from school and with spelling practice to do we only had about 20-25 mins.  As it turned out that was plenty, but it did feel slightly rushed.

I set out the material and let everyone get stuck in.  The only rules were no tape and no cutting holes in the tea towels or napkins.

Once everyone had finished making the DIY parachutes for teddies then we headed up to my room to test them out.  I have a door that opens onto an iron sort of balcony.  You can’t stand on it, but it does make the ideal place to launch things from.  Leonora stood with EC and YC as they threw their teddies out while I waited below.

Please make sure you supervise children if they are going to be leaning out of an open window.  

Mine landed in a bush!

We had various degrees  of success from our designs.

Poor YC’s teddy fell out of her parachute while she was holding it over the railings.

All in all I think that EC had the best design going.  His Batty landed the most gently.

If you enjoyed this DIY parachutes for teddies activity be sure to check out my glow stick city, how to catch a bubble, and skittles density tower.

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