Friday, December 16, 2011

Catapults!

My hubby is back on his regular work schedule, after a year-long fellowship on Capitol Hill, so he has every other Friday off of work. Being the awesome dad that he is, he helped the boys build seige weapons this morning while I went to yoga class. We've been studying Roman history, and Thing One is especially interested in military history. He found instructions online here. It only requires popsicle sticks, rubber bands, masking tape, cardstock, and glue or glue. The things used mini-marshmallows for ammunition. Another good reference for building this sort of thing is the book The Art of the Catapult: Build Greek ballistae, Roman onagers, English trebuchets, and more ancient artillery by William Gurstelle.
Here are some building photos.
The battlefield had been cleaned up by the time I got home. I heard the ammo kept disappearing down Thing Two's throat.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Misty,
    I wanted to thank you for your posts, and let you know they are reaching a wannabe home-school mom (maybe I'm an "after school/homeschool mom"?) way out in California. I may just try that catapult project with my 8-year-old.

    At the moment he is interested in exploring the tides and gravity, particularly for an upcoming Science Fair. Any suggestions you've come across for hands-on for a science fair project? All I've found online is a project that asks kids to look at tide charts and cross-check them for dates and high/low tides. I'm here by the Pacific ocean, so I ought to be able to figure out something more exciting.

    Be well, and keep on posting!

    Laura

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    1. Thanks so much Laura! I have been horribly remiss in my school blogging this year. It's nice to know I have a few readers! Here's a neat tide experiment from ehow:
      http://www.ehow.com/info_8519820_ocean-tide-experiment.html
      Have fun!

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