How to Make Balloon Rockets for Kids

How to make Balloon Rockets for Kids

In this post you will learn how to make balloon rockets with a few home supplies and a couple of minutes.

Balloons Can Be Fun

This is by far one of my favorite activities to do with kids. I think it’s their reaction. It’s such a cool and fun activity, they will ask you to do it again and again. I done this several times with my kids, and they think it’s amazing every time.

My son just kept saying “again, again, again”. He was wearing me out.

This is a great science activity, and you can put it together in like five minutes.

Here’s how we did it.

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How to make Balloon Rockets

Supplies:

Balloon
Straw (a plastic straw)
Tape (duct tape works best, but we only had scotch tape on hand, it worked great)
String (I used fishing line this time, and it worked great)
A good pair of lungs.

Instructions:

Prepare by measuring out the area you’d like to do your balloon rocket. You need an area that’s a straight shot, pretty level, where you can tie your string. We did our front door knob to our back door knob. It’s a straight shot and they are both the same height.

Before you tie your string, make sure you put the straw on the string. Then tie both ends to your secure spot.

Next, prepare your piece of tape.

Blow up your balloon and place the balloon against the straw and tape it on. Don’t tie your balloon and make sure your balloon opening is facing the back so that when you let go, it will shoot forward in the right direction.

When you’re all set, let go of your balloon.

Watch it shoot across the room, and watch your kids eyes light up.

Blow up your balloon again and repeat as much as you like, or until your mouth is numb and you start feeling light headed.

More Balloon Rocket Fun

My kids loved to try and race the balloon, and they each took turns letting go of it. You could be even more creative and draw a rocket on your balloon and give it a name.

You could even set up two launchers and have the balloon rockets race each other.

There is a simple science behind the balloon rockets that you can explain to your kids. Let’s get educated!

According to Science Bob: https://sciencebob.com/

“As the air rushes out of the balloon, it creates a forward motion called THRUST. Thrust is a pushing force created by energy. In the balloon experiment, our thrust comes from the energy of the balloon forcing the air out. Different sizes and shapes of balloon will create more or less thrust.”

To make it more “sciency” you could make the balloon into different sizes and have the kids observe the difference in speed and distance. You could also ask your kids questions about how they will think it will work, or what will happen before you even do it. Kids are so smart, and maybe they already know! :

That’s how you make a balloon rocket. Easy peasy!