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Indoor Ramps

Make ramps out of flat pieces of cardboard and other materials.

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, paper plates, etc.
  • flat pieces of cardboard, foam core, or wood
  • boxes and other objects for supporting the ramps
  • camera or video camera
  • drawing supplies

Directions

Let children freely explore ramps indoors, without specific instructions. Sometimes, you may want to have children build the ramps facing a wall so that rolling objects will stop at the wall, or you may want to use a cushion as a bumper. Other times, you may want children to build their ramps on a long hallway so they can notice the distance objects roll after leaving the ramp.   

This week you’ll supply children with ramps made from flat surfaces; in the coming weeks you’ll add cardboard tubes and flexible tubes center so they can experiment with building other types of ramps.