All You Need Is Milk And Eggs To Make A Rocket

Rocket launches are something a lot of people do not get to see in person.  We happen to live not too far from the space coast in Florida, where rockets are launched on occasion.  Because they are in our "backyard," we wanted to give ourselves the opportunity to experience a launch in person.  Our family recently had that chance, our second one actually, one evening last week.

As we settled down in our viewing spot overlooking the water and the lit up rocket in the distance, we talked about what it would look and feel like as we waited for the official countdown to near.  My husband tinkered around with the camera settings, eager to catch a good shot.  When the moment finally fell upon us, it was like we were watching it for the first time again.  A beautiful picture doesn't come close to seeing it with your own eyes.  The cloud of smoke and fire that billows up around it, the vibrations that hit you once the sound of the explosion comes across the water, the streak of light that's drawn across the darkness of the sky and lights it up like the rising sun, the faint smell of rocket fuel, and the low and dull glow that slowly disappears into the clouds as the rocket leaves our atmosphere.  Watching something that powerful really awakens your senses and is something that I don't think will leave our memories.

When children have first hand experiences, such as ours with the rocket launch, they naturally want to play them out.  Aidan has been drawing and pretending to fly rockets for days.  Enter random stuff.  I've been saving empty milk cartons for a challenge that one of my favorite bloggers puts on every couple of months.  I pulled them out this week and asked Aidan what he thought they looked like...rockets of course!  We began planning our design.

We used contact paper to cover the cartons so Aidan could customize them with stickers, markers, and paint.

Once they were dry we slid the carton with no bottom inside the one without a top to mimic the action of how a rocket sheds off parts as it's projected into space.  I cut off a section of an egg carton for the boosters, poked holes in the bottom of each "cup" and thread some crazy string through to represent fire.  I tied a knot on one end of each string before threading so they wouldn't fall out.  Then we applied hot glue around the edges and stuck it on the bottom of the rocket.

We had a test launch of course...

Can't you just hear the rocket sounds he's making?

Please share what you've used to make a rocket with your kids.  If you haven't made one before, all you need is milk and eggs!

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