Crafts Ideas for Kids About Machines
Children learn best by doing and that is also true when you want to teach them about simple machines. Being able to fully understand machines will help them, as they get older in more complicated subjects like physics. Easy craft ideas can accomplish this objective for children. Expensive materials are not needed to build simple machine crafts. There are six simple machines: levers, inclined planes, wheels and axles, screws, wedges and pulleys.
- To build a lever place a pencil on a flat surface and then lay a ruler or board across it, it will look like a teeter-totter. Try different objects on both ends to experiment with weights.
- Stacking a few books up and then laying a board or piece of strong cardboard against the books can build an inclined plane. This craft creates a slide. Push a car down the slide and see how far it goes, then add or take away books and see how far the car rolls. Use this to teach the child why the car rolls farther when the slope is taller.
- Build a simple car to illustrate wheels and axles. Collect two new pencils and tape them to the bottom of a small box. A milk carton can be used but the pencils need to poke out on the sides of the box. Take four spools that had thread on them and hook them to the pencils. Discuss why the box moves easily with the wheels but did not before the wheels were attached.
- A wedge can be taught to a child by showing them a doorstop or a car tire wedge. Explain how it is pushed under the door or a wheel to limit movement.
- Pulley crafts can be purchased at a craft store. Fill a bucket with heavy toys and ask the child to lift it with their hand. Now hook the bucket to the pulley and have them lift the bucket. Talk about why the bucket was easier to lift using the pulley instead of only their hand.