Flying Spring Chickens and Cracking Eggs

I was more than a little excited when Gracie, my 1st grader, brought home a kid/parent spring project for us to work on the other day. The instructions: build a nifty little container for a raw egg - one strong enough to keep the egg from cracking when dropped off her school roof.

Gracie came up with the parachute idea, and wanted to make a bubble wrap-filled container that had a happy face and flight goggles. I thought that sounded pretty fantastic, and added the suggestion of making the container a mama chicken, tucking the egg safe inside. 

We found the making of our chicken to be a pretty hilarious task, using plastic containers for the body, and gluing on terry cloth wings and a tail, and a sparkly pom-pom comb. Gracie made the feet, beak, and goggles out of scraps of felt.

After school, Gracie was very pleased to announce that only four eggs survived the drop.... And wouldn't you know it - not only did the Great Flying Chicken make Gracie's whole class laugh, but the Great Flying Chicken protected her egg!

Annelie thought this project sounded pretty great, so while Gracie was off at school, she decided to make a nifty egg container of her own. Only she was quite certain a bit of paper on the top and bottom, and an even smaller bit of tape holding them to the egg would be sufficient.

"Gee, I don't know - you might need to build a container that's a little bit stronger than paper and tape," I said.

"No, this will work," she answered with conviction. "It's a helmet."

I didn't climb up to our roof, but I did drop her egg from a table over the back patio, about 10 feet from the ground.   

 

It cracked - just the tiniest bit.

"Let's drop it again!" Annelie exclaimed, because cracking eggs is FUN.

So we did.

A very fun, if not slightly messy, experiment for all!

xoxo,