BUFFALO, N.Y. — It's midway through the week off for kids in Western New York, and by now, cabin fever may be setting in. Daybreak is here to help!
Every day this week, Daybreak's Melissa Holmes is showing off a simple science experiment, with the help of her 5-year-old son Elliott and their friends, using items you probably have in your home right now.
Monday they made a raw egg bounce! To see how it works, click here.
Tuesday they made a chemical reaction with a balloon. Click here to watch it.
Wednesday, Stella, Ronan, Emmaline and Elliott helped Melissa make a Marshmallow Catapult. Here's how to put it together.
MARSHMALLOW CATAPULT:
You need tape, 5 marshmallows, 7 wood grilling skewers, a spoon and a rubber band.
Place three of the skewers in the shape of a triangle. Then insert the marshmallows at the points. It forms the base of the catapult.
Then take 3 more of the skewers and using a 4th marshmallow, create a pyramid shape by placing the end of the skewers into the top of each base marshmallow. The top of the skewers go into the bottom of the 4th marshmallow.
This makes the body of the catapult.
The next step is to take the last skewer and the spoon and tape the spoon onto the end of the skewer. This will make the launch pad. Use a lot of tape to make sure it's secure.
Then take the rubber band and put it around the marshmallow at the top of the pyramid.
Take the spoon skewer and put it through the rubber band and into one of the base marshmallows. This will make sure the launch pad is in the right place.
When you pull the spoon back, you'll see the rubber band gets stretched.
Finally put your last marshmallow in the spoon, pull it back and let it fly.
This is a great simple way to demonstrate Newton's 2nd law. Force = Mass X Acceleration.
The kids will have a blast trying to see how far they can fling the marshmallow, or trying to land the marshmallow in a friend's mouth. It will keep them busy, happy and maybe give them a little bit of a sugar high!
EXPERIMENTS COMING UP:
Thursday on Daybreak, Melissa and the kids will test out a homemade lava lamp using cooking oil and Alka-Seltzer.
Friday on Daybreak, they'll make ice cream in a bag. Also on Friday, extra experiments will be posted exclusively on the web. Be sure to check back for more of Daybreak's 'At Home Science'!