Planes and fulcrums: making toys fly

Mini Me has a much beloved toy at Nani's house... one of my childhood toys, actually: a Weeble house with little Weebles and their car, swimming pool, slide, and teeter totter.  With Papi's help, it didn't take long for Mini Me to learn how to use the teeter totter to launch the Weebles across the room.  Possible broken picture frames aside, it really is a great science lesson to explore about levers.  


I was thinking about the flying Weebles one day and wondered if Little Lady would enjoy a similar activity.  I got out a Tupperware lid for the plane of the lever and used a wooden car for the fulcrum.  I explained to her what I was doing with the plane and fulcrum and I'm absolutely convinced that she is going to remember those vocabulary words and become a world-famous scientist.  Finally, I grabbed some small, noisy toys (it was funny to turn their music on and hear it take wing) and we were ready to make them fly.  

I counted down, "One, two, three, PUSH" and pushed down on the lid.  We watched the toy fly in the air.  She wasn't quite sure what to think at first.  

I thought she would just get some entertainment from watching, but I soon learned that she wanted to help out.  She started trying to push down on the lid with me.  Yay!  

She is also wonderful at fetching the toys that are launched and many times, brings them back to the red lid for more flying action.  


We've done this several times and sometimes she just wants to sit and watch the spectacle.  Sometimes she tries to push on the lid with me - she's getting more accurate.  And I swear, she has started saying "pa pa pa" when we set it up to play so maybe she's trying to say, "push"?  She's not too verbal yet, so I'll take what I can get!  At any rate, this is an ongoing activity for us that is fun in a we-can-make-toys-soar-into-the-air-and-not-get-in-trouble-because-we-aren't-actually-throwing-them kind of way.