St. Patrick’s Day Balloon Rockets
I’m sure you have seen all the fun balloon rockets all over Pinterest. Science Bob has a great tutorial on how and why these little racing balloons work so well. Since St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner, we decided to try Racing Balloon Leprechauns instead of rockets. We used nylon kite string, wide straws (the kind that are wrapped in paper from restaurants), green electrical tape and some leprechaun coloring sheets printed off the internet.
Balloon Rocket Supplies:
- Balloon ~ We used 2 different styles and both worked great
- Disposable Drinking Straw
- String ~ We used a wax covered string, because that is what we had on hand
- Tape
- Leprechaun Coloring Page ~ Optional
How to create your own Balloon Rocket:
The leprechaun coloring pages were cut out and taped to the straw. The straw was then taped to the deflated balloon. Make sure to have the “tail” of the balloon facing in the opposite direction that you want your Leprechaun to fly. As the air is released from the balloon, the Leprechaun will fly down the string. The kids were so excited to try out their racing leprechauns.
Each of the kids chose a different Leprechaun. Adorable.
I love the racing leprechauns. They looked so funny floating through the air.
The regular round balloons worked great. However the kids wanted to try some special balloons that their grandma sent in a package. These balloons are hilarious. It took a bit of patience to blow them up, but it was worth the wait. The longer shape made the balloons fly faster more like a rocket.
Now that is one fast leprechaun! Have fun racing your Leprechauns!
For more St Patrick’s Day activities, check out our:
Too much fun!!!!!!
Not being Irish, St. Patrick’s Day was never important to me until my daughter was born on March 17. This year since it falls on a Saturday she is excited to have her party on the actual day with a St. Patrick’s Day/Rainbow theme. I am so glad I stumbled upon your site as I now have a Credit Card rainbow Art project and a Leprechaun Races game for the big day!
Thanks for sharing your creative ideas!
We are not Irish either, but my kids LOVE all holidays. Hope your sweet girl has a wonderful birthday!
That looks so fun! We can’t wait to try for ourselves.
SO MUCH FUN!!! This is great…would love to invite you to share this with us at Sharing Saturday here…
http://www.mamamiasheart2heart.com/2012/03/sharing-saturday-9.html
Thanks so much and have a great weekend,
~MiaB
I’m totally doing this! And not in the “when I have kids” sense.
How wickedly wonderful is this activity! My kiddos would love it!
We did this with our Sunday School class on Sunday. Only we taped our Bible verse on the balloon. You used better tape than us though. Each time we flew them we had to re-tape. We all loved it !!!
I love the idea of using a bible verse! We used packing tape and it held great.
Hi,
I love this!! we are Irish and as such,actually didn’t mark Paddys day much, but we are going on a Leprechaun Hunt next week ~(weather abiding!) so was looking for Leprechaun activities, this is perfect, thanks.
Excellent blog here! Also your web site rather a lot up fast! What host are you the use of? Can I am getting your affiliate link to your host? I wish my website loaded up as fast as yours lol
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WOW! These ideas are so creative!!! I love the sponge sprouts and I can’t wait to have a balloon race with my daughter.
Thank you so much for sharing.
Louise
I tried this today with my preschool class. I had looked at your post pretty extensively (I thought) and figured I knew exactly what I was doing. I thought I did everything you did. but realized I did not read well enough. Well I just wanted you to know that I did try it and was super excited to share it with my class. It did not go as great as yours did but it was still a fun experiment. If nothing else it taught me to read better. If you could take the time to check out my blog I will be posting pics and a detailed description of the activity attempt very soon. Thank you for sharing your ideas. I have tried several of your ideas but have never left you a comment until now. thanks again.
http://thepreschoolexperimentblog.blogspot.com/ here is my blog address 🙂
It is a fabulous activity! Thank you! I love the laughter of the kids and they are really have a wonderful time. I use balloons a lot with my kids and they love to chase after them. Here is something I will try during the spring break and I know they are going to love it!
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My whole family is not that into Saint Patrick’s Day but no one says it has to be leprechauns I think we will have this race many times just use pictures of whatever animals he likes at the time last night we just used fish
My son and I had some fun launching balloon rockets a few days ago for R week, before I read your post. I love your idea of adding a picture to the side to adapt the activity to a chosen theme. We added a rocket made from foam shapes (since we were focussing on the R sound) but it proved too heavy. Well done on the leprechauns!