Extensions
Rocket Craft
With the use of paper towel tubes and craft supplies, children ages 5–8 design a rocket that will help them learn the parts involved in rocketry.
Lemon Juice Rockets
Easily accessible materials (lemon juice, baking soda, water, vinegar) allow young children to experiment with different “fuels” to make a “rocket cork” pop out of a plastic soda bottle.
Balloon Rockets
Ballooned-fueled straw rockets are thrust along string paths, engaging young children in rocket race fun. An alternative balloon rocket activity challenges children to add cargo.
Straw Rockets
Paper
Rockets
Small flying rockets made out of paper and propelled by air blown through a straw can be found at these sites. Complexity of the activity can be varied for ages 5–13.
Bottle Rockets
Instructions for building and launching bottle rockets. This activity for ages 10–18 is advanced in the construction of the launch pads, but the results are exciting. Facilitator and student instruction sheets are also available.
Rocket Car
Children ages 8–15 build a car out of easily accessible materials. An air-filled balloon provides the propellant and allows the children to understand how rockets move by means of action and reaction.
Balloon Staging
Two inflated balloons are joined to simulate multistage rockets.
Rocket Design
Children ages 9–13 build and launch simple rockets from launch pads of various angles to determine what trajectory angle will carry a rocket the greatest distance.
Coloring Pages
Space shuttle and rocket coloring pages for ages 5–12.
Edible Space Shuttle
Children ages 5–8 build an edible space shuttle out of bread, carrots, peanut butter, and celery to learn about the space shuttle and its parts. Could be easily modified for other types of spacecraft and rockets.
