A DIY snow shovel ball launcher grabbed my attention when a blue and black soccer ball flew through the 8-degree air toward my head. Two happy eight-year-olds chased it down. “You missed the target,” one yelled, “I bet I can hit it.”

In the cold dusky hours of this winter Wednesday, they had built a ball launcher with available loose parts. They positioned a large hunk of firewood on a flat spot in the house’s small front yard. On top of and perpendicular to the firewood hunk, they placed a snow shovel so that its handle was on the ground and the blade was up in the air. The ball was carefully balanced on the shovel’s handle in preparation for launch. Then it was adjusted as the kid aimed at the target. With a quick stomp on the shovel blade, the ball flew into the air.

The tracks in the fresh snow indicated that they’d been at this exploratory play for a while–repeating their experiment, refining the position of the lever on the fulcrum, varying the amount of effort used to move their load, learning STEM without even trying.

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Snow Shovel Ball Launcher Wrap Up

The snow shovel ball launcher, like the DIY pumpkin coach, is an excellent example of what kids can do with loose parts, time, space, and a bit of creativity and initiative. Allowing kids to mess about with materials like these lads did leads to more learning, STEM and otherwise, than teacher-directed learning.

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