Over the last 2 weeks Angela’s investigation of forces has moved from water force, to the force air can generate when it moves. This came about as a result of the children using water blasters in the garden – McKenna noticed that if you skooshed the blaster without water in it, a blast of air came out. We found that we could also move things using air force! We did experiments in the water tray with boats, using our breath to blow them along, fans to move them and hairdryers to make them go really, really fast.
On Wednesday Angela set up an exciting experiment to have some fun with air power – rocket balloons!!! We tried to blow up balloons but it was really hard – the rubber kept pushing the air out again.
Angela had a solution to this. She brought in a balloon pump which we all had a look at- it has a plunger which can squash the air so it moves in a big puff, into the balloon. We all tried it on our hands to feel the pressure of the air.
The balloon pump made it much easier to put air into the balloons.
We tried letting the balloons go, once we had blown them up.
“Some balloons go high, some balloons go low and some balloons go medium!” said Hamish
We used string across the playground to make 4 race tracks for the balloons to race on.
“I wonder what will happen?” asked Angela. “Not sure!” said Nina. Hollie said, “It will go along the string!”
We cellotaped the balloons onto straws to begin our race. At first, the wind kept blowing the balloons back. We changed which end of the string we used and this was good as the balloons then moved along the strings really well. We found the smaller balloons didn’t go as far as the big ones. Anna said,” You put the balloons on string. Mine’s went to the end.”
Hamish said, “Hamish’s one go round and round like a circle- then to the finish line. Anna’s goed to the end- my one is slowly, in circles – Anna’s one very fast!”
Ava said, “Air made the balloons move – my balloon won the race!”
Amelia said, “The air goes into the balloon from the pumper. The air makes the balloon go across the string. It falls down when there is no air left in the balloon.!”
Stewart realised that the bigger balloons went further: “You put air in the bottom to make it go across the string. My balloon went the furthest because it was the biggest – it had most air in it!”
“The air made my balloon fly across the string!” said McKenna
We had great fun with the balloon race and the children had the idea that next we could make things to stick on the straws and use fans to race them along the strings. We are going to try this next week!
