Homemade Friday-Hovercrafts

Before I conitnue on this post, check this out. It was just a great feeling I got in the yard yesterday out with the children.

So, on to hovercrafts. This is a really cool, teacher supervised activity. It's teacher supervised because it involved balloons. I only allow balloons in the classroom as teacher directed activities. There are too many dangers with them. What you are going to need is just three items: old CD's, superglue, balloons, and waterbottle tops (the pop-top ones that pop open and shut work best.) Take the waterbottle top and superglue it onto the center of the CD, right over the hole in the middle. Make sure that you don't superglue the top closed or this won't work.
Once the glue dries, close the water bottle lid, blow up the balloon (don't tie it closed). Place the blown up balloon over the bottle top. Sitting on the table it should be: Disc, bottle top, balloon.
Now, pull the bottle top open and let go! The disc will hover over the table! Way cool! We add all sorts of weather to the environment to see what happens: blowing wind from different sides, does it go over a puddle of water, all sorts.
What is happening is the air pressure from the air escaping the balloon lifts it off the table, causing the disc to float.

This is a very fun science experiment!