Got Air?

Yesterday morning I blew up a few balloons for the boys to play with.  It's amazing how balloons can be so entertaining.  I got out a couple of straws for them to do some experimenting.  At first Elliott thought the straws were going to somehow attach to the balloons. Then, he thought we were going to use the straws to make the balloons even bigger.  I asked him what would happen if he put the balloon on the table and blew air through the straw?  Instantly the balloon play time turned into mini-science lesson! 

We expriemented with different sizes of straws and found it was easier to blow the balloons with the big straws. It was also fun to blow the balloons across the table without the straw! We tried blowing the balloons with the straw above our head, and we found that it took a lot of skill and air!  Next, we went into my bedroom with the ceiling fan on high and tried throwing the balloons up, we found they came right back down - fast!   Elliott had the idea to turn off the fan to see what would happen - the balloons went up and came down slower!  The last experiment was putting the balloons in front of the table fan.  We tried all 3 speeds.  The boys thought it was the most fun to have the fan on high, they loved watching the balloons go flying!

Blowing a balloon with a big straw.

Trying to blow the balloon above his head!  Not easy for a 3 yr old!

Blowing the balloons without the straw.

It takes a lot of air to get it all the way across the table!

Oliver had a fun time, too!