Rubber band ball
My dad's a postman, so we have hundreds of rubber bands lying around the house. As well as having practical uses such as binding letters and packages together, they can also be lots of fun. When I was younger, Dad and I constantly used to flick them at one another. Another fun thing to do with rubber bands is to make a bouncy rubber ball. They won't bounce on the ground very well, but kids can have a great time throwing them against the wall and catching them as they come back.
Time: 10-30 minutes depending on how big you make it.
Age: Any Age
Level: Super Easy
Materials
Tin foil / aluminium foil (or newspaper is also a good alternative)
Collection of rubber bands
If you have not got a postman in the family, then you'll have to start building your collection of rubber bands. They're not difficult to get a hold of. Most of your letters and parcels probably come bound in them, and many grocery store items like spring onions and fresh herbs use rubber bands to hold them all together. If you really want to, you can buy rubber bands from the post office, but I doubt it will really be necessary.
Scrunch up your foil into a ball
Once you have your rubber band collection, you can start. Tear off a portion of tin foil (or newspaper) and scrunch it up into a ball.
Then simply wrap your rubber bands around the the foil. You should wrap them round both horizontally and vertically (okay, it is a ball shape, so that does not really make sense, but you know what I mean).
Continue to build up your rubber bands until no more foil can be seen.
If you have coloured rubber bands leave them for the top layer to make it look more attractive.
Now do the bounce test. Throw it at a wall, and if it bounces back, then you're done.
You can build your ball as big as you like, until the rubber bands no longer fit. What's nice is to be able to see it grow as you collect more rubber bands. See how big you can get it.
Categories
#Rubber Bands
#Ball
#Any Age
#Easy
#Aluminium Foil
#Games
#Science
