Science Experiments for Kids- Turtle Balancing

Turtle balancing is one of those experiments for kids that looks easy, but is tricky. Coming up with ways to balance them is easy, but what ways will allow the turtles to stay standing. It is easier to get them tumble than it is to get them to all to stay stacked. We found two ways that worked right away. Coming up with more was challenge.

Making this set of balancing turtle was super easy and they didn’t require a lot of supplies.

Here is what you need:

Four paper towel rolls

Magic marker black

Scissors

Green paint

Printer paper

Pencil

How to put the turtles for these experiments for kids together:

Trace a turtle on a piece of copy paper folded in half in pencil. Then cut the turtle out. The turtle cut out will be a template you use to trace the turtle onto the paper towel rolls.

Place the turtle outline on one paper towel roll at a time and trace the turtle onto it. I tried to place the nose of the turtle close the edge of the paper towel roll so that it would be easier to cut out.

The paper towel rolls I used were easy to cut, but not so flimsy that the turtle’s legs would collapse under them. I was able to cut them out while watching JDaniel play in the yard one afternoon. They took no time at all.

The original idea was to draw a grid on each turtles back and place a spiral each square of the grid. Once that was done, green paint would be placed over the marker design. When we did that, the design did not show through well. JDaniel explored the turtles and trying to balancing them a little and then I drew the design on top of the green paint. The design looked much better on top of the paint.

With the turtle creation completed it was time to go back to balancing the turtles.

Science Experiments for Kids- Turtle Balancing

One way to balance the turtles that we tried was to create a turtle tower with one turtle on top of the other. The next best way was to have two turtles on the bottom and to balance the rest of the turtles on them. The second way did send a turtle tumbling at first. Placing the turtles carefully on each other in just the right place was key. Finding that right place was tricky.

Having more than four turtles would make this science experiment more challenging. Thankfully we go through a lot of paper towels! We should be able to add to the turtles number by the end of the week.

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After exploring this science experiment, I remembered the book Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories I will have to look for it the next time we go to the library. It would be great to read it and then pull out our growing number of turtles to balance them.