When you mix the fun of building with the power of rubber bands, you have an exciting hands-on learning activity that kids go nuts over.

This homemade rubber band shooter STEM activity is fun when the weather has you stuck indoors.

The simplicity of the design for this shooter means kids can easily build it themselves.  (With a parent’s supervision when it comes to using the hot glue gun.)

If your child loves playing with rubber bands as much as mine do, you may also want to check out our rubber band boat.

And, for another fun craft stick STEM challenge, try making your own balancing craft stick toy.

Rubber Band Shooter STEM Activity

Affiliate links have been provided below.  See my full disclosure for more details. 

Materials Needed:

• 2 Jumbo Craft Sticks
• 2 Regular Size Craft Sticks
• Clothes Pin
• Hot Glue Gun
• Mini Rubber Bands

Start by hot gluing the two jumbo craft sticks together, one on top of the other.   This will form your handle.

Then hot glue the two regular craft sticks together the same way.

Take the pair of smaller craft sticks and hot glue one end of them an inch from the top of the jumbo craft stick handle so the smaller craft sticks are perpendicular to the jumbo craft sticks.

Next, glue the clothes pin on top of the smaller craft sticks so that the end of the clothes pin that you pinch is lined up with the jumbo craft stick handle.

Let it dry completely.

To load your rubber band shooter, pinch open the clothes pin and put one end of a rubber band inside, closing the clothes pin to secure the rubber band in place.  Stretch the other end of the rubber band to the front of your shooter and loop it over end of the small craft sticks.

The extra inch left at the top of the handle is perfect for storing your mini rubber bands.

To shoot, press on the clothes pin to release the rubber band.

Remind your child to always aim at a safe target.

Although mini rubber bands don’t hurt as much as a larger rubber band, they can still be dangerous.  Never aim at pets or people.

Empty pop cans make fun targets that make a little “ding” when you hit them.

You can also use this rubber band gun for Nerf gun math facts and sight word practice.  

Want to sneak in a little more learning with this rubber band STEM activity?

When the rubber band is stretched it is full of potential energy.  When you press the clothes pin that energy changes to kinetic energy as the rubber band flies forward.

How far does the rubber band fly?  Use a tape measure and record the distance.

Can your child make it shoot further?

Will changing where the clothes pin is located on the shooter change how far the rubber band goes?   Try it!

Have your child design and build a new shooter and see how moving the trigger affects the distance.   They might just move it further back, so the rubber band has to stretch more.

Or, they may choose to glue the clothes pin somewhere entirely different.  Let them experiment with how the changes affect how the rubber band moves.

This homemade rubber band shooter STEM activity is lots of fun for elementary kids to explore.

You may also like these STEM projects:

• How to Make an Electromagnet
• Design a Cardboard Tube Marble Run
• Build a Leprechaun Trap

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The post Rubber Band Shooter STEM Activity first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Our Oil Explorers group is having an awesome series this month:  The Skeptics Guide to Essential Oils.  I am so excited to be a part of it and to share a bit with you here today!

If you use social media very often, chance are you have stumbled upon several posts about essential oils lately.  It may even feel like essential oils are just the latest fad when it comes to health and beauty products on the market.

I admit, I used to think that.

Then I started realizing all the products I’ve been using for years that actually contain essential oils.  That wonderfully relaxing lotion I love at the end of the day?  It contains eucalyptus and spearmint essential oils.  The baby bath wash so many of us use to help little ones fall asleep at night?  Lavender.

This past winter, with so many illnesses running rampant, I started researching for ways to boost the family’s immune systems, and what did I discover?   Essential oils.

But with all the hype, are they just a fad?

No, essential oils are certainly not just a fad.

In fact, essential oils (sometimes called aromatic oils) have been used by numerous cultures around the world for centuries.  I knew that essential oils are often used for medical purposes, but I didn’t know that traditional Indian medicine has a 3,000 year history of using essential oils.  (3,000 years!)  During that time they have identified hundreds of natural substances, like cinnamon, ginger, and myrrh, that have healing properties.

And, when it comes to the science of healing, you can’t forget about the ancient Greeks.  Hypocrites, the Greek physician who is known as the “Father of Medicine,” documented the effects of over 300 essential oils from plants, including saffron, peppermint, and thyme.  Not only that, but the ancient Greek soldiers were actually given an ointment made of myrrh to help fight infections on the battle field.

My favorite tidbit of information when it comes to the history of essential oils revolves around on of my new favorite oils:  Thieves Oil.  Thieves oil is based on the legend of four thieves that would rob the bubonic plague victims in Europe during the 15th century.

How did they keep from getting sick themselves?  They covered themselves with cloves, rosemary and other aromatics that were highly effective against airborne bacteria.  (Little did I know the cloves I threw in the water on the stove at Christmas time to give the home a nice holiday smell could actually be helping us!)

Now, I’m not covering the kids with thieves oil (definitely not recommending that), but I have been using a diluted thieves oil with the family this winter, and so far we haven’t been sick.

So, if they aren’t just a fad and they’ve been around for centuries, why does it feel like they are suddenly everywhere? My guess is social media.  We live in an age where information can spread like wildfire.  And if there is something you believe in, something you are excited about?  Well, you want to share it!

Are you a skeptic like I was?  Want to know if they really work?  Do brands really matter?

Find out the answers to those questions and more with the other awesome posts in The Skeptics Guide to Essential Oils!  

Interested in trying essential oils yourself?

You can read about how to get started here.

Everyone that signs up with the Oil Explorers will also be included in The Oil Explorers Facebook page, which is full of support and answers!

The post Are Essential Oils Just a Fad? first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

First our preschooler got to have her hair colored purple.  I was worried that it might freak her out afterwards, but she loved it.  Then they enjoyed their first snow cones, ever (Mommy had been wanting one, so I was psyched they had them).
After enjoying their snow cones they played some of the kiddie games.  I loved that all the games were simple enough that even our 2 year old could play.  And, everyone was a winner!

Monkey was shy around the clown running the wheel game at first, until he realized he could win a toy or candy bracelet.

After a few games they got to pet some animals.  The baby goats were super cute!  I tried to get a pic of Daddy hanging our preschooler over (head first of course) to pet a rabbit, but people kept getting in the way….  I did get this one, though:
My little guy just loved watching the ducks splash in their little tub.

He also LOVED his candy bracelet!
After our hot dog and chip lunch (everything at the festival, including lunch was free), we visited the fire truck.  Our son has always loved cars and he is just getting into a fire truck stage.  I was pretty excited he was going to get to sit in the truck.
(Notice I was wearing red for our troops since it was Friday…)

We went early, so we were able to leave just as it started to heat up a little. 
Don’t they look tired?  I was hoping they’d fall asleep on the way home, but instead they played with their balloons and little prizes.  They did sleep good last night, though!  And our preschooler is already asking when we can go back!

The post Family Day Festival first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

They both love Dora and Diego (they watch it at Mamaw’s and on video from the library since we just have regular old t.v.), so I decided to create a Dora and Diego adventure for them.  Since my daughter is also into princesses, I thought I’d throw in a castle, too…

So I gathered all the boxes I had saved up; I even had the box from Monkey’s new car seat still…which worked great in my plan!  I looked through my gift bags, printed a few pics of Dora and Diego off the Internet (because let’s face it, I can’t draw them as good as the pics I can find look), and found a few more odds and ends to use to decorate…

First I removed the walls I wanted to replace; this was easy since they are held together mostly with duct tape.  Then I planned the layout of the new walls.  I decided to use the car seat box to make a “cave” for them to crawl through.

After I had the new boxes duct taped to the floor and each other, I set about decorating them.  I used a silver gift bag to make a “waterfall” inside the “cave” and put Diego and Swiper the Fox on the opposite wall inside it.  I used the back side of some large poster calendars that Papaw had given the kids to color on and covered the car seat box so I could decorate the outside with Dora and Diego.

In the castle area I cut the top of the wall to look more like a castle.  I used the back of some fancy silver-paper calendar (another gift from Papaw) to make a mirror on the corner of the castle walls.  It gave it a fun house mirror effect.  I also used a couple very strong cardboard tubes (they had housed the large calendars) to make “ball drops” for the kids to drop balls and small toys through.  I just used wire ties to connect them to the cardboard walls.  Doing it at the corner of two walls actually strengthened the support between them.

Finally I decided to make another wheel, this time with Dora’s backpack in the middle and items that might be in it, with pictures on the wall to match items to.  Kind of like a “If it’s raining, what does Dora need from her backpack?” kind of question area.

I was all finished, when I showed my husband and he said, “Aren’t you going to wall in the rest of the castle?”

Sigh.  I knew he was right, they’d love it even more if they could “hide” in the castle.  So I found one more box… and some more pictures from a few gift bags and got to work. 

When they finally got to see it, the kids did love the castle!  And I love that they have a new play area that didn’t cost me anything but a little time!

The post Our Cardboard Play Area Gets an Update first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

When kids are young it’s important for them to have a space of their own to play in.  Our kids have taken over the living room… But when one of my very generous family members noticed what a climber my daughter is (she seriously would climb the walls if she could…) and gave us a Little Tykes climber to put in our basement, I thought, why not make a play area in the basement?

The problem, of course, is that our basement is unfinished and there is TONS of stuff down there that kids should not get into…

So just what do you do when you want a play area, but can’t afford to build walls to help keep the kids in their allowed space?

Get creative!
We had tons of big boxes just kind of sitting downstairs. We had both boxes from the kids’ car seats, a box from the new grill we got last summer, some boxes just from ordering things online… If real walls weren’t going to happen to keep kids out of Daddy’s area, then there were going to be walls around the play area!
Most of the boxes I chose were taller than our oldest child, eliminating the ability to climb over them. I opened up each of the boxes and decorated them with permanent markers at night after the kids were asleep.  I picked a jungle theme since at the time both of their rooms were in that theme and they love animals.  I raided the gift bag collection and found some metallic ones to use as mirrors.  I also cut peek-a-boo flaps into my “walls” and taped gift bag pictures on the back for the kids to find when they lifted the flaps.

When I thought I had enough “walls”, I stood them up and ran duct tape along the box flaps that I had left at the bottom of each wall. I also used duct tape to tape the sections together, angling them back and forth instead of making them perfectly straight to keep them from tipping over too easily.  My husband helped get some of our heavier boxes of stored items and put one behind every other section to give it a little more stability, in case of a charging toddler.  For a “door” we used a large piece of extra thick cardboard and just leaned it against the bottom step and the closest cardboard wall section. It’s easy to move when Mommy or Daddy needs to, and still slows down a 3 or 1 ½ year old, should they plan an escape.

The kids loved it when they came down the next day.  One of the sections I am most proud of is the rotating wheel with Sesame Street character bodies that you match to the heads on the wall.  I just used a double sided button poked through a hole in the wheel and one in the wall to hold it on to the cardboard wall. I also used a very strong cardboard tube that a poster had come in to make a “ball drop”. My son loves to drop balls down it over and over.  A simple piece of felt hot glued to the wall provided a quick and easy felt board.  (Looking for a felt board for traveling?  Look here.)

So, not only do they have a walled in play area now, but the wall is also functional as a way to entertain them a little further. Not only that, but it is easy to change with their interests…
And the best part? Unlike hiring a contractor to build a room, or trying to do it ourselves, it was all pretty much free, and it was done in just a few days. We had the boxes. We had duct tape and markers. All we’ve spent money on are some additional foam mats to cover the rest of the play area floor, since concrete isn’t forgiving of toddlers who are just learning to walk, nor is it really comfortable to sit on.

The bouncy Fisher Price zebra with the loud music, the rocking airplane I had bought at Once Upon a Child, the ball you sit and jump on, and the ball pit we put together for our son’s birthday… All those energetic, noisy types of toys have gone downstairs, out of my living room…

I’ve made several updates to our walls since this post.  We’ve gone through a Dora phase and most recently and Octonauts phase.  And, it is still all holding up, 2 years later.

The post Cardboard and Duct Tape… first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.