Homemade PVC Pipe Canons - Tutorial

My six year old wanted a pirate party for his birthday this year, and I decided I wanted to make canons so they could have a real pirate “battle”. I looked around online and couldn’t find a tutorial for anything that was really functional. I found a lot of tutorials for how to make something look like a canon, but nothing that would actually shoot anything.

After scouring the web, I decided to simply make my own. With the help of my lovely sister, Christy (who has an awesome blog over at My Homemaking Experiment), and my physics minor (I knew going to college would come in handy some day!) we figured out the mechanics of the canon we wanted to make, as well as the materials we needed.

With our planning completed I took off to Lowe’s to pick up the PVC pipe. We ended up making five canons, so I bought a 5’ section of 2” PVC pipe and had the guy at Lowe’s cut it into 12” sections for me. Then I bought 1” PVC couplers to use for the inside of the canon (to eject the canon balls from the canon).


Material List: (this is for one canon)

• 1 ft long 2” PVC pipe
• 1 1” PVC coupler
• 2 7” x 1/8” 1/4 lb rubber bands (or any other long, strong rubber band)
• 2 screw in eyelets
• 1 6” piece of wood – dowel, tongue depressor, etc
• string

Tool List:

• drill (you’ll need a bit the size of your eyelets, and another bigger bit for the holes for the rubberband and string)
• pliers
• scissors
• hacksaw (if you are using a dowel)

Instructions:
Step One
Drill holes with your small bit (the one the size of your eyelets) approximately 1 1/2” from one end of your PVC pipe tube. The holes should be directly on opposite sides of the tube.

Step Two
Screw the eyelets into the holes.


Step Three
Using your larger drill bit, drill four(4) holes in the 1” coupler piece. The holes should be toward the ends of the coupler, and the holes on each end should be directly opposite each other on either side of the coupler.

Step Four
String the rubber bands through the holes on one side of the coupler. To “tie” the rubber bands, simply loop them through the hole, then put one end of the rubber band through itself.

Step Five
Prepare your piece of wood. If you are using a piece of dowel, you will probably need to use a saw to cut notches in the wood at either end of the dowel. If you are using tongue depressors (what we used) then you can probably just cut the notch with scissors. We ended up also hot gluing the string to the sticks, which was kind of a pain, and they keep coming apart. I will be replacing them with dowels.

Step Six
Thread the piece of string through the end of the coupler opposite the rubber bands.

Step Seven
Tie the ends of the string to the ends of the dowel/stick. Your “inside piece” of the canon should look like the photo on the right below.

Step Eight
Use the pliers to open the eyelets slightly. Thread the loose ends of the rubber bands through the eyelets on each side of your PVC tube. Using your pliers, close the eyelets so the rubber bands don’t fall off.

Step Nine
Drop the stick attached to the string through the PVC tube, then follow it with the coupler piece, and then the rubber bands. Follow the photos below:

Then pull the stick out the bottom as shown below. Position the stick perpendicular to the PVC tube.


That’s it! You now have made a PVC pipe canon!

We used plastic golf balls (which I eventually spray painted black) as the canon balls. I also spray painted the canons black as well.

Here is a video demonstrating our finished canon! The kids had a blast with them, and they were pretty cheap to make. Probably a few bucks per canon.

And here is the video of what we actually used the canons for. (the video is double time, they weren't actually shooting the canons that fast - ha!)

If you make this canon, I’d love to see photos or videos of how it worked for you! If you have questions, feel free to ask.

It’s a Zoo Out There

Or in there. Where? The playroom.

So we tamed the animals and put them in a real zoo.

Well, a zoo made of 1x2’s and dowels.*

Inspired by this $160 zoo that holds way more stuffed animals than I would ever allow our children to own. And ours cost about $20. That’s approximately $140 savings. And Mr Einstein and I got to work on a project together. Which we love doing. Okay, I’ll be honest, which we’re learning to love doing together.

How do you tame the zoo at your house? Do your kids love stuffed animals as much as mine do? Do you have a stuffed animal quota?

* sorry for the lame picture. This picture was showing the aftermath of General Conference in April. I’ll replace it with a better picture of the zoo when I get a chance.

Building Blocks... er, cups

You can have all the toys in the world, and the dishes in the kitchen are still the most entertaining.




Apparently this one below is the "Eiffel tower of winona." I have no clue where he gets this stuff.




But hey, imagination, motor skills, stacking, he's even learning a little 1-1 correspondence here stacking the cups with their openings together.




Even J wanted to get in on the action, even though her creations weren't quite as sophisticated.





What do your kids play with in the kitchen? Do you let your kids play with dishes? Are there "off limits" cupboards, and then some that are free-for-all?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Play and Sort

I am a big fan of sorting.

And a little obsessive.

Of course, like any good obsessive mother, I have to make sure the kids are obsessive, too. And then, there is the fact that sorting is good for kids cognitive development. You don't need fancy games or worksheets or projects to teach kids about sorting. In fact, all you need to be slightly neurotic about the playroom being organized, and then you will have an opportunity every day to sort with your kids!



I made these toy bags for Christmas one year when V was getting too old for just baby toys and I felt like the toys were taking over the family room. There was an animal one, too (with an elephant on it!) but our animal collection quickly outgrew the size of the bag.



I also realized that the bags are only really good for toys that are better to play with in a set (train tracks, blocks, dishes) where these plastic drawers work better for "categories" of toys (robots/people/machines, building blocks, animals, etc). If the kids are looking for a lion, they just pull out the animal drawer and get a lion, instead of dumping out the whole bag.

And when it's time for clean up? Sorting practice!

I made signs from pictures I took of the kids' actual toys for the front of each drawer - to make it a little more personal, and to help them with sorting. I was thinking of printing them in color, but I think the black and white is less distracting. I am pretty happy with our system for now, but I want to build a toy shelf/cupboard that I can lock up (when the kids don't clean up their toys or when we don't want them out all over the place). However, I think I will keep a lot of our current system when I build the cupboard.

How do you organize toys? Do you have to convince yourself that having all those little toys everywhere is actually good for your kids? How do you get your kids to clean up their toys? Do you play games with them?

 - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hopscotch and Sidewalk Chalk

One of our favorite things to do when the weather is good is draw with sidewalk chalk. This particular time we drew fishes and whales (and the latter eating the former…)

And then I had a stroke of genius. Teach my kids hopscotch!

So I drew a simple hopscotch board (complete with numbers) and taught the kids how to play. Baby mostly just jumped up and down the squares, but Little caught on to dropping the rock, skipping it, and picking it up on his way back. It was a great activity to help with gross motor skills like jumping, standing on one leg, and bending over to pick things up.

An added benefit was learning the order of numbers, and my favorite – they were wiped out and completely ready for naps afterwards!

Animal Workout

Did you know that you can get your workout in and play with your kids? We did this “workout” today. It’s a great way to talk about the ways different animals move, and we get a workout (and our kids get a workout!) at the same time!

I took these pictures with my phone, no flash, so they are a little blurry, but at least you can see that Little Einstein liked to move! I did every action with him, both to show him how they go, and of course to get my own workout. You can do each animal action for as long (or as short) as you want. I think we probably worked out for about 20 minutes, maybe half an hour. The great thing about this work out is that is it a lot like interval training, depending on which animals you move like, and for how long. You are working really hard for a few reps (say with your frog – jump squats) then you let your heart rate come down while you move around like a chicken, or stretch like a dog. Feel free to mix up the animal poses, add a few of your own, or simply let your kids make up their own animal moves. And hey – follow their lead! Chances are their move is a pretty good workout, too.

We started out stretching like a dog (downward dog, anyone? He wouldn’t put his hips up as high as he usually does when I took the pictures – which was after we had already been through all the animals once):

Then we moved on to some slower moving animals, like ducks, chickens, and roosters.

Remember to make the animal sounds. It makes the activity that much more fun!

After that we did a little bit of frog (jump squat!), crab, and horse:

 

Don’t forget to run around like eagle (or your choice of bird) – get those wings flapping for some lateral raises!

And last but certainly not least - “slither” like a snake. I could only do this one for a few seconds. Who knew it was so hard to move without arms and legs! We talked about how strong snakes must be. And of course, Little E wanted to “slither” down the stairs… I stopped him before he got too far. Didn’t want Baby trying to follow him!

In June, Little E and Baby E are going to do the Piglet Plunge in our local Dirty Dash after I run the 5K Dirty Dash. Last summer Little E and I ran the Dino Dash for Little Rock, AR’s Museum of Discovery. They had a 5K, and then afterward a little 1K for the kids. E has been asking me when he gets to run another race ever since.

It’s easy for kids to stay fit when they learn how much fun it is as a child!

How do you get a workout in with little kids around? Do you include them in your exercise? Do you have to encourage your kids to move around, or do they do it naturally?

I linked up at No Time for Flash Card's Link & Learn:

Sensory Tubs and Big Plans

This month we have been talking about water and mountains and where water comes from, and different kinds of “water” (ice, snow, rain, etc).

We did this sensory activity with different water temperatures, and then just played in the water. It reminded me of Allison’s sensory tubs over at No Time for Flash Cards. I love the different tubs, and I especially love that she just stores the contents when her kids are done and pulls them out later to use again. I am excited to start making these, and will probably start doing them once a month.

Mostly I just wanted to link to her site with the sensory tubs, because I think they are SUCH a great idea, and such good slightly-parent-guided play for kids! Her son is younger than mine, but I think my son will have just as much fun playing with these tubs.

We’re going to be doing the Spring sensory tub next month for our “May Flowers” theme, along with visiting the local Conservation Garden, a local nursery, and planting some of our own wildflowers. I can’t wait for next month! I am so excited to share all the fun things we will be doing!

In the mean time, for the rest of April (only a few days left!) we will be doing some more “water” activities, including a field trip to the small river near our house and hopefully a hike up a mountain – not to mention a few smaller at-home play activities/crafts. I have been such a slacker this month about doing activities, but I will be better, I promise! I’m going to try to do a bunch of my planned activities in the next four days. You will know if I succeed because I will have a lot of new posts!

Relative Temperatures – Water Play

The weather around here has been less than ideal for outside play, but my kids love playing with water, and I wanted to do this activity since it’s been raining and snowing a lot, to talk about different temperatures of water. Our water in the summer comes from the snow pack in the mountains, and so even in the summer, the water is very cold.

This activity was pretty fun. I didn’t get into too much depth with the temperature thing, but I did let them feel the water to at least introduce the concept. I had three bins of water – one with ice water, one with room temperature water, and one with warm water. I had them put their hands in the room temperature water, which they said was “cold” (anything that isn’t hot to them is cold) and then into the ice water which was really cold, and then back into the room temperature water, which was then “hot” – then into the hot water, and back into the room temperature water. We talked a little bit about how the water just feels cold after the hot water, or warm after the cold water – it didn’t actually change at all.

Then I just gave them a bunch of utensils and let them dump the water from bucket to bucket, mixing all the water, moving the ice around, etc. They actually did a lot of good discovery things.

 
It didn’t take long for the ice to be in all three buckets.

They discovered scooping the ice with the wire sieve would only pick up the ice, and not the water. Baby was enjoying using the ladle to scoop the water into the sieve for a while before I noticed… she didn’t really get it that the water wasn’t staying in the sieve. I swapped it out for a plastic container before she got too much water on the floor.

This was probably the best part – when Little E was dumping water into the bucket, he noticed that when he dumped it from higher up it made a bigger splash. He even made the observation and told me about it before I even said anything. I love watching these kids learn! They soak up so much information, all we have to do is provide a fun learning environment!