A roller coaster of a ride

Friday Co-op during science activities class we did a really fun project that lasted the entire class time. Kathy had the kids make a roller coaster out of foam tubing cut lenghtwise in half. They taped these together and were able to use chairs, boxes, cans or whatever they found to create hills and valleys and loop de loops. The kids were divided into four teams and each team made their own roller coaster. Then they competed to see which coaster was the fastest. They used marbles to speed down their coasters. Each team got their marble under about 2 seconds. Out of the four teams we saw some really cool things that went on. The team with mostly girls used styrafoam cups in various ways like you would see a watermill work, it was incredibly creative. Another team , conner was in it, had the only loop. One team went the speed route and taped their coaster way up on the wall to see if they could make it go faster than the other teams, Austin was on this team. Colin's team made valleys and such . They all had such great minds all forming their own cool versions of a roller coaster. It was so much fun. After all four teams competed we then combined them to make two teams and an even bigger coaster. It was crazy and you saw teams using the ingenuity of other teams work on both coasters.



The atmosphere was insane. They were soooooo loud. I had to get mean and raise my voice and let me tell you my voice already carries quite well and I tend to be louder than I think most times. I have no problem getting my kids attention. All around the room you saw excitment and fun and creativity and best of all learning. We kept asking the kids what type of energy the marble had at any given point. The kids were enthused and pretty competetive. It was great.
Kathy puts on one mean class. : > ) I hope to get pictures from her, she had a helper go around and take some. She also has lesson plans that coordinate this fun exciting class if you want to try it .

Vanessa