paper worm racing tutorial

waaaaaaay back in 2008, i wrote a blog post about some worm races that we held at our library.  this year’s summer library theme is “dig into reading” and my worm race post has been getting a lot of hits lately, so i thought i’d update it with the promised instructions for paper worm races.  i haven’t done this at work recently, but i tried it out with the happy toddler to make sure it worked and we took pictures of that.

what you need:–paper

–pennies (two per worm)

–scissors

–double-stick tape

–crayons, markers or something to decorate your worm (optional)

–drinking straw (not pictured above, but necessary for the “racing” portion of this project)

step 1:  tape the two pennies to the paper with the double stick tape.

step 2: draw a long, skinny oval that goes around the pennies and makes a straight line between them (see below).  this is the body of your worm.

step 3 (optional and i forgot to photograph this step):  cut out and decorate your worm!

step 4:  fold the ends of the worm so that the middle curves up (see below).  step 5:  race the worms by blowing air on the front of the worm and then the back of the worm through your straw.  unless you have a very narrow table across which to race your worms, only two racers recommended at a time.