Spider Catapults

 

Spiders continue to be a popular topic of exploration in our classroom! To infuse this interest with math and fine motor work we introduced clothespin catapults to the children this week. Wooden catapults are easily made by securing a clothespin to a steady base (like a wooden block) with an elastic. 

They require concentration and perseverance for children to operate. As children become more confident using them they are able to use strategy to aim the catapult in a specific direction or apply pressure to further or reduce the launch power. 

Small plastic spiders (ours were from the local dollar store in the Halloween section) are light and perfect for playing with. We offer 'webs' made from wrapping a shallow basket with yarn. Children are encouraged to fire the spiders into the webs.

    

Once children master launching the spider into the web additional math tools can be offered to enhance the experience. A five or ten frame or hundreds chart are easy tools for children to use when tracking how many spiders they have landed in the webs.   

                   

Additional targets can be provided for children to play with (e.g., alphabet chart, number chart, printable web with points). The possibilities are endless! 

Catapult Number Bingo

We used our fun mini catapults today with a number chart to play a game of number bingo!

Fire the cannon...

See where it lands and identify the number...

Match it on your bingo card and stamp it!

First with a full card wins!

Math Catapults

Mini catapults are so much fun! Not only are they a great tool for encouraging mathematical exploration, they build fine motor strength and help children develop resiliency and perseverance as they are a difficult tool to learn to manipulate at first.

We made mini catapults out of clothes pins by hot gluing them to a block to use as a supportive base. The children were encouraged to try and fire mini foam counters into bowls in order to accumulate points. The person with the most points wins the game!

The children were eager to record the points they won using tallies.

The children realized that if they put more than one counter on a catapult they had a better chance of getting a point!

Catapults

Mini catapults made from wooden clothespins are a fun way to engage children in a fine motor and math activity. 

The purpose of this game is to catapult mini chips into a bowl and keep score to see who gets the most points. 

He shoots...

...he scores!

Manipulating Catapults

Mini catapults made of clothespins and a wood block are one of our favourite inventions! We introduced them early last year, so our current SKs are quite skilled at manipulating them. We put them out at the science and math area last week in hopes they would pique our JK's interests as well.

It was really interesting to watch the children experiment with how to best manipulate the catapults. In the following video you can see the teamwork involved as the children work together to stabilize the catapult.

Once the skill of how to use them is mastered, many children work on their control and technique. Aiming the chips into bowls was a favourite activity and great for strengthening fine motor control and hand-eye coordination. 

Our goal is to encourage the children to assign points for getting chips in the bowls. This will add a math element to an already very exciting activity!

More Catapults

The children were eager to use the catapults again today. They devised a game where each person had to try and land a chip into bowls placed in the center of a table. As they played, they recorded their points on a communal tally chart, discussing their progress using rich mathematical language (e.g., "Look, I have two more than you do!", "How many more do I need to catch up?"). This game also challenged their fine motor skills as they had to manipulate the catapults in a specific way in order to get the chip to aim and land in a bowl.

Catapults

Inspired by a kindergarten blog we follow regularly, and wanting to capitalize on children's interest in building and manipulating things, we built some catapults using a piece of wood, a clothespin, a popsicle stick, and our hot glue gun.

The children were immediately drawn to the devices. At first they just explored how the catapults worked, trying a variety of objects while learning to manipulate the springing action.

Then some of them created a game where one child shot an object with the catapult while the other had to catch it using a container.

As they became more comfortable, the children grew tricky, putting multiple objects on the catapults and seeing how they flew through the air. They noted the heavier objects did not travel as fast or far as the lighter ones.