Fairy Tale STEM: Build Cinderella’s Carriage

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I love a good activity that’s related to a story we enjoy reading.  Today’s post is all about Cinderella. This Cinderella Fairy Tale STEM project has kids build their own Rubber Band Carriage that moves. If you’ve ever seen the fun rubber band cars it is similar to that, but this one is an actual carriage that can carry Cinderella! It’s fit for a princess.

We paired this activity with a favorite version of the story Cinderella by James Marshall. We enjoy his fairy tale books a lot!

This is part of my Fairy Tale STEM bundle!  See more here: Fairy Tale STEM Bundle

How to Make a Rubber Band Carriage

You’ll need just a few supplies:

A Small basket
2 Wooden skewers
4 Lids from apple sauce pouches
4 Large plastic lids (We used peanut butter jar lids)
1 Rubber band
Hot glue gun
Ribbon (totally optional)

So you will notice that my supply picture does not include the larger lids. We started out with the small lids and it did NOT work. It didn’t raise the basket high enough off of the ground to let the rubber band car go. I let my son figure out a solution and he wanted to try larger jar lids. It worked perfectly! So, you may not need both types of lids, but those little green lids were perfect for holding in the skewers. The fun of STEM projects is the experimentation part. If your kids have other ideas, let them try them. Trial and error is the fun part of learning!

The little basket was from the dollar store. You can decorate it with ribbons or strings to make it more princess-carriage-like. My girls insisted on this part! 🙂

Trim the skewers down a few inches so the axles are not too long. Save one of the small pieces for later.

Glue the skewers into a small lid on one side. Don’t do both sides!

Once one side is dry, place the skewers through the two ends of the basket. Then you can glue in the other ends. Next we glued the larger lids onto the smaller ones. This made them really secure and big enough to roll the car.

The skewers are the axles of the car. Use a rubber band and wrap it around one of the skewers, but not the other. The other end, put through a hole in the basket and slide the small skewer piece through it to hold it in place. You can use a dab of hot glue to secure it if you want, but it isn’t necessary.

How to Make the Rubber Band Carriage Go:

Twist the wheels on the side there the rubber band is attached to the skewer, or roll it to twist it. Once it is wound up several times, let it go and watch it race away from you!

Add in a little cinderella doll or other action figure to make it even more fun for little kids! 🙂  This is perfect for a lesson on Kinetic and Potential energy.

Grab the Fairy Tale STEM Bundle Now!

See some of my other Fairy Tale STEM and Story Book STEM Activities:

Fairy Tale STEM: Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Three Billy Goats Fairy Tale STEM Project
The Raft: Story Book STEM
If I Built a Car: Story Book STEM
5 Apples Up on Top Levitating Magnet Science