Just about every kid I know, loves LEGOs. My children are no exception. They love to build and create with LEGO blocks. Add in my son’s need for throwing, tossing, and twirling just about everything and we came up with an idea to make a LEGO Man Parachute. I really wasn’t sure if it would work and we were so excited when it did! Now I’m going to share with you how to make a LEGO Man Parachute out of a few household materials.
It was super easy to make this LEGO Man Parachute and we used a few things we had lying around the house. First, though, Wunderboy had to find a LEGO man in his bottomless tubs on LEGO’s!
Materials:
- LEGO Man (or girl!)
- Plastic shopping bag
- thread
- needle
Instructions:
To start, you will need to make a parachute canopy from your plastic shopping bag. To do this, cut the shopping bag in half so that you are only using the back portion.
Fold the back piece in half and draw a half circle from the fold. Cut along line, and open to a full circle.
Next you will need to cut six lengths of thread, 18″ long. I cute them longer than needed to make it easy to tie. I also used upholstery thread which is stronger than regular thread but I’m sure all purpose would work fine.
Mark three holes on each side of your circle, a couple of inches apart. Place one string on your needle and feed it through the hole in the plastic. Tie the end securely. I use an upholstery needle or a craft needle, they are much duller than a regular sewing needle and safer for children to work with.
Repeat this step to add all six strings to your parachute.
Gather three strings on one side together, make sure they are all equal and attach them together to one of the LEGO man’s arms.
Do the same to the other side, making sure they are equal lengths.
Now it’s time to test him out! Hopefully you will have the same results as we did!
Make it Science:
For some added education you can make this a science project! Have the children experiment with sizes of parachute canopy and length of the strings. Let them hypothesize which will give you the longest ride and then test it out! You can also test the length of ride when releasing from various heights. Older children can even make comparisons between the height of the drop and the amount of time it takes to reach the ground. So many possibilities!
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