Today is New Year’s Eve! Make it fun and festive with this DIY confetti launcher! As you begin your countdown into the new year, have your confetti launcher ready. When the countdown hits zero, snap your balloon, and watch the confetti fly! In our classrooms, children ask to do this repeatedly until the toilet paper roll becomes crinkled. Tip: Have more than one or two ready just in case (especially if your child gets overly excited at times)! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Benefits:

Fosters creativity, imagination, curiosity, and critical thinking skills!

During this process, your child might wonder, Wow, how did the confetti come out? What would happen if I used a longer roll? I did not realize I could do this with a rubber band and balloon! These questions help them to build their creativity with materials, use their imagination to make real working things out of nothing, and to enhance their curiosity and critical thinking skills about how things work.

Materials:

Toilet paper roll, ballon, confetti, rubber band (or tape), and scissors

Instructions:

1. Place the opening of the balloon on one end of the toilet paper roll. Secure it by using a rubber band or tape.
2. Place confetti into the toilet paper roll.
3. Pull back the balloon and let go! Watch the confetti fly!

Age/Difficulty Variations:

• For younger children, have it set up before they snap the balloon. Allow them to do a simple step, like pouring in the confetti.
• For older children, discuss how the confetti was able to fly out. Question: What type of energy was used? Answer: Kinetic energy. For elementary age students, allow them to research kinetic energy and come up with new experiments to try!

Check out Vandita.momandmore on Instagram to inspire more DIY early learning activities like this one!

We hope you enjoy this day 14 activity out of the 15 Days of Winter Break Activities series! Let us see what you created by tagging us on Instagram and Facebook!
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