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Build Trackways

Explore sending small balls down long trackways made of tubes and ﬂat ramps.

Print Activity

Materials

ﬂat ramps (cardboard, foam core, wood)
tubes of different lengths and diameters (packing tubes, paper towel tubes, etc.)—some tubes can be left whole and others cut horizontally to make open troughs
small balls or large marbles that will roll along the tubes
tape
camera or video camera

Key Science Concepts

A rolling object will move faster down a steeper incline and slower down a less steep incline.
When a rolling or sliding object hits an obstacle, it will stop or slow down and its direction may change.

Vocabulary

Encourage children to use terms such as track, shape, incline, slant, steep, flat, curve, faster, and slower as well as science process words such as observe, compare, same, different, change, and test.

Directions

Have children build a long track for a small ball or large marble, using materials of their choice. Challenge children to change the shape and incline of the track so that a ball travels the whole length.
Encourage children to share their discoveries, talk about their challenges, and describe how they solved their problems. How did they change the shape of their track to make the ball travel the whole distance?

Reflect and Share

Help children to record their observations, ideas, and questions. Take photos or videos and encourage children to draw and write about their constructions.

Related Video

Back to Stand-Alone Activities

Building More Ramps

Stand Alone
Indoor
20 - 30 minutes

Educator Close-Up

We set a challenge for the children: Build a long ramp for a hardboiled egg. See if you can get the egg to roll all the way down the ramp into a padded shoebox. The children were really enthusiastic. They worked in teams. Some groups created really complex ramps. One child discovered that, depending on how you placed the egg, it would either roll or slide. When we used the PVC piping, we had to slide the egg down the track so it would fit, but on the cardboard ramps, we could roll the egg down.

—Kira, preschool educator

Safety Issue: Marbles

Because marbles can be a choking hazard to children, it is important to closely monitor children when they play with them. Use only large size (25 mm) marbles. Make sure children understand not to put marbles in their mouth.

© 2024 WGBH Educational Foundation. All rights reserved. Peep and the Big Wide World and the Peep characters and related indicia are trademarks of WGBH Educational Foundation. All third party trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Used with permission. “Peep,” “Quack,” “Chirp,” “Tom” and “Nellie” were originally created by Kai Pindal for the National Film Board of Canada productions The Peep Show, © National Film Board of Canada, 1962, and Peep and the Big Wide World, © National Film Board of Canada, 1988. Peep and the Big Wide World ® is produced by WGBH and 9 Story Entertainment in association with TVOntario. Major funding for Peep and the Big Wide World is provided by the National Science Foundation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1222607. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.