These super EASY to make marshmallow shooters are a must for your summer bucket list. This summer activity for kids is not only fun, but it is actually a STEM activity for kids too! Students assemble, tweak, and design this simple marshmallow cannon to try to get the most distance they can. THis is such a simple, but fun summer activities your preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, and elementary age students in first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grdae, 4th grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade students will want to try over summer break!
Marshmallow Shooters
After reading the super fun and silly book The Marshmallow incident where the townsfolk end up shooting marshmallows all over the place, we decided to design our own marshmallow shooters as a fun book based activity. This fun summer activities for kids turned out to be even more fun than we realized! This simple STEM activity for kids involved us designing, making, tweaking, and adjusting our shooters to get the most distance we could for our mini marshmallow cannons. This is perfect for planning summer fun for kids of all ages from preschoolers, kindergartners, grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, grade 4, grade 5, and grade 6 students.
We also did this fun STEM project for kids as part of our Knight Unit. Seriously, this seems to simple to be as much fun as it is. But it is such a fun summer activities at home. Did I mention they shoot over 30 feet – that’s some serious FUN!
How to make a marshmallow shooter
For our marshmallow shooters we used simple things we found around our house.
- disposable cp (plastic or paper will work) – any color
- mini marshmallows
- full size balloon – any color
- scissors
Summer fun ideas
Cut out the bottom of a Dixie cup. You need a medium size sturdy cup. You can use a plastic one if it has thick walls or use a large Dixie style cup.
Marshmallow cannon
Cut off the tip of a balloon. It can be any color you have laying around leftover from a birthday party.
Summer activity for kids
Pull the balloon over the top of the cut end of the Dixie cup. You can help secure this with a rubber band if you like. For younger kids you may want to. Goofy (7) and I didn’t need it.
Fun summer activities
Now you get to play! Just load with a mini marshmallow into the cup so it sits on the balloon at the bottom. Now put your hands on the ouside of the cup, pinch the balloon and pull it back gently.
Fun summer activities for kids
We had competitions to see who could shoot the farthest. We had marshmallow go over 30 feet!
This is a great kids activity for summer fun or as a go along to The Marshmallow Knights, one of our favorite books!
Fun Summer Activities
Looking for more outdoor activities for kids and things to do in the summer? Your toddler, preschool, pre k, kindergarten, and elementary age kids will love these fun ideas to keep them busy all summer long:
- Marshmallow Shooters – go over 30 feet!
- 2 ingredient Easy Slime Recipe
- DIY Lava Lamp
- Pop Rock Science Experiment
- Grow Your Own Crystals
- Water Balloon Density Experiment
- Amazing Bubble Painting
- Grass Head Craft for Kids
- Bleeding Tissue Paper Fireworks Craft
- Beautiful Flower Suncatcher Craft
- 30 Fun June Crafts for Kids
- Lego DIY Zipline
- Exploding Watermelon Science Experiment
- Sidewalk Chalk Recipe
- Ice Cream Edible Playdough
- Summer Bucket List Printable with Ice Cream Theme
- How to Make Ice Cream in a Bag
- Ice Cream Playdough Patterns
- First Day of Summer Craft
- Blow Painting
- 107 Epic Summer Activities for Kids