This easy rocket activity for kids is great in so many ways. It engaged and amazed all my kids, from my toddler and preschooler to my 10 year old. I say, any activity that is doable and fun for multiple ages is a winner for sure.
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Although I tweaked it a bit to suit my family, this idea is not original to me. I found the instructions on the Team Cartwright blog. You can check out their original post here.
What It Is
We did this rocket building activity on the Fourth of July (as you can tell by my kids’ red, white, and blue attire) in lieu of store-bought sparklers and fireworks. Easy on the budget, high on the fun! But, really, it can be incorporated into quite a few different holidays and lessons. I am planning to pull it out again for our fourth grade science lesson on rockets and jet propulsion.
We have been using Real Science 4 Kids as our science curriculum for years and love how it teaches chemistry, physics, biology, geology, and astronomy to kids from Day 1 of 1st grade and up. Each lesson includes a hands-on experiment using mostly common household supplies.
Science is several of my kids’ favorite subject. They love the fun illustrations and easy-to-read chapters of the textbooks, and beg to do the experiments! You can check out my review of this “real” science curriculum here. Or go straight to their website with my referral link.
This rocket activity for kids is a great science lesson on chemical reactions, rocket propulsion, and pressure. It involves engineering, problem-solving, and creativity. Your artists will love getting to design and decorate their rockets. And your action-oriented kids will love getting to shoot their very own rocket.
What You Will Need
- Toilet paper tubes (1 per person)
- Plastic Easter eggs (1 per person)
- Original Alka Seltzer tabs
- Paper
- Markers
- Tape
- Water
- Tablespoon
The Indoor Part
First, I gathered one empty toilet paper tube for each child. I keep a grocery bag full of them in my craft supplies for just such an occasion. The craft options for toilet paper tubes are limitless! I share a lot of them over on my Activities for Kids board on Pinterest. You should definitely follow me there! The Activities page here on the blog has lots of my own activities for every age group. Please give it a look!
The kids scrounged around for enough Easter eggs for each person to have one. Does everyone have random plastic Easter eggs lying all over their house all year round or is that just me?
I pulled out scrap paper, markers, scissors, and tape and told the kids to have it decorating their rockets however they wanted. It’s always fun to see their different personalities come out in their designs.
I taped the longer, thinner half of the eggs into the bottom of their rockets, and we all headed outside.
The Outdoor Part
We took a cup of water, a tablespoon, and Alka Seltzer tabs along with our rockets to the front yard. (I bought store brand tabs from Dollar General for just over two dollars. We shot our rockets as many times as the kids wanted and still had half a box of tabs leftover. So this rocket activity for kids ended up costing just barely over one dollar for 5 kids and 2 adults to enjoy to our hearts’ content. Very budget friendly!)
The trickiest part of the whole process is getting the egg snapped together before the Alka Seltzer tabs and water get too mixed. I found that if I let the kids put the pieces of tab into the top half of the egg (the one attached to the toilet paper tube) and a tablespoon of water into the bottom half, then the adults could usually get the eggs snapped together quickly enough.
We used store brand Alka Seltzer. So after trial-and-error, we discovered that about 3/4 of a tab worked the best for our rockets. You may find that you need more or less than we did. It was a good opportunity to talk about the scientific method and not giving up.
The Fun Part
After you snap the eggs together, be sure to pass them off to the child quickly and instruct them to hold just the bottom half of the egg. The rocket they designed will shoot off suddenly with a slight pop. We all jumped every time one shot off! The anticipation was fun and everyone giggled each time.
Even my one year old enjoyed spooning water and watching the rockets shoot. Though she did seem to enjoy playing with the water most of all, haha.
It was a great way to spend an afternoon as a family. There was very little fighting as the kids enjoyed watching one another’s rockets shoot off almost as much as they enjoyed their own.
I know your family will love this rocket activity for kids as well as mine did!
I’d love to know if you gave this activity a try! How much of the Alka Seltzer tabs worked for you? What lessons were you able to connect? Feel free to share your experience or tweaks you made in the comments. I would love to hear about it!
If you like this activity idea, please check out some of my other tried and tested activity ideas – like this Caterpillar Themed Game, Indoor Activities for Kids, or LEGO Riddles – on the Activities page! I also have lots of educational resources in the Chasing Those Moments Shop.
