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Tubes and Ramps

Add tubes to your ramp-building materials. 

Materials

New Materials

  • Add toilet paper and paper towel tubes, cutting some lengthwise in half to make open troughs; poster tubes; PVC tubes; and wooden molding of different lengths, if available

Existing Materials

  • objects to roll or slide down the ramps: markers, rolls of duct tape, balls of various sizes and weights, toy cars, paper clips, plastic utensils, balls small enough to fit through the tubes, etc.
  • flat pieces of cardboard, foam core, or wood
  • boxes and other objects for supporting the ramps
  • camera
  • drawing supplies  

Directions

Introduce tubes this week, broadening the types of materials children will build ramps from.  As they explore, you may want to ask them how making ramps out of tubes differs from ramps made of flat materials.