DIY Foam Vehiclaes

Today we decided to make some working models (not exact replicas) of vehicles.

First we collected things we might need to do this.

Here is our set of supplies :



6 mm foam sheets,  straw pipe, wooden sticks, some buttons for wheels. Some colorful paper for decorating the vehicles.

We started with making a red bus. 
Step by step picture tutorial.

1) Make small holes using straw on the foam sheet where you want to put the wheels.



2)  Next cut small 2" pieces from straw and pass it through the two layers of foam sheet.









3) Next we added some window and doors on the body of bus. I printed stickers for this, so that it is easier     for my daughter to stick it on bus.

    The focus of this exercise was not pasting and sticking, but making a demo vehicle.







4) Next we put the wooden sticks through the straw. And put two buttons on each side.
This is how the assembly looked like.










6. Later we realized that buttons did not prove to be good as wheels. So we replaced it with  wheels made from  circular foam pieces. 

We tried several variation, by putting uneven sized wheels on either sides and analyzing  how the bus moves under various scenarios.




We also made a Jeep, a car, a Train model and a boat with the same supplies.












Inside Atom - Fun Hands On Activity


Atomic structure is a fairly simple concepts to understand and remember, if explained properly.

But kids do tend to get confused about various orbits, constituents of nucleus , naming conventions, electron in a particular orbit etc.

My challenge today was to design an activity for Atomic Structure concepts.

I decided to make concentric rings out of foam sheets to represent the orbits.

And Boards pins to represent neutron, proton and electron. Some paper tape was used for labeling purpose.

We started with arranging the orbits around nucleus.



Once the basic frame was ready.

Next we put label for "Nucleus" and orbits "K", "L", "M".

(Kids understand that "K" is first orbit , "L" second , "M" third and so on)




We decided to represent Oxygen atom in this.

Oxygen has atomic number 8.  So number of electrons, protons will be 8. Oxygen has equal number of neutron so that is also 8.


We picked white boards for neutron and  blue boards for proton. Green ones were used as electron.





Oxygen model was ready in few minutes. 


Later we made lots of atomic model of various elements. What a fun filled learning session we had...

Am I please with myself ... you bet I am. Nothing is more rewarding than a happy child who is enjoying learning new concepts.

Try it with your kids and let me know their reactions.