Egg Drop

It's the week before Easter so I decided it was the perfect time for us to do something fun for Science.  We finished our Science curriculum awhile ago so I've been trying to review or do supplemental science things since then.  Most days I don't make them do any science since we are done with the books but they all like science so when I think of something we do it.  This week is all about eggs.  Yesterday we did a Humpty Dumpty experiment.  We went around the house and collected items that we thought might keep our eggs from cracking then we tried out dropping them with the different materials to see what would work the best.  I boiled eggs so that we didn't have a crazy mess on our hands and that was good because most of them cracked.  

This morning first thing the boy got up and were so excited to get started on making their contraptions for our egg drop test.  Yesterday we used boiled eggs and today when we first tested them we used boiled eggs but for our actual drop we used fresh eggs!  They each thought of their own and used some materials from the day before but I was amazed at what they came up with!  Eli found a packing box with a perfect circle for the egg to sit in.  He dropped his box over and over and over from different levels and it never once cracked.  He even added other packing things to put around the egg, which was completely unnecessary because his box was totally sufficient but he still enjoyed thinking of other things to make it even safer.

Isaac had two contraptions.  His first one was brilliant!  He grabbed two rolls off the counter and sandwiched his egg between them and then used string to tie to rolls together.  He called it his Egg Salad Sandwich.  It was perfect--no cracking whatsoever!

His second contraption was made by wrapping his egg in bubble wrap and then taping bouncy balls all around the bubble wrap.  The contraption did do a lot of bouncing but it did keep the egg from cracking!  It only cracked at the end after the drop when Isaac purposely threw it as hard as he could against the ground to make it crack.  

Will had a complicated and good idea.  Again, most of his was unnecessary, as he learned later, but he wanted to make it as secure as possible.  He took his egg and surrounded it by blown up balloons and he put the balloons in a box with bubble wrap, wheat, and cotton balls.  The egg was completely untouched.  We had him drop it again with just the balloons and again, no cracking!  He threw it hard on the ground a third time, no cracking, and even played soccer with the balloons and it still didn't crack!  

Piper wanted in on the action but I only used a boiled egg for her.  She put hers inside a ball of string with cotton balls surrounding it to keep the egg from bouncing around inside the ball.  Then she stuck the ball of string inside a plastic container and when she dropped it, it didn't crack!!  

Best egg drop experiment ever!  The kids laughed and laughed and I was so impressed by their creativity.  I kept looking around for things to help Piper with and had a hard time coming up with hers but the boys knew immediately what they wanted to use. 

We've got some other fun Easter/Egg activities planned for the week so I think it will be fun for all of them.  I'm glad we are doing this because I was concerned our first week back to real school after our vacation would be rough but I think the excitement of the egg activity has helped us to get back into things quickly.