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Following the Tea Party escapades, Alice made her way into a beautiful garden with bright flowerbeds and cool fountains. She found that the gardeners, who were dressed up as playing cards, were painting all of the roses red. Things only got crazier from there as Alice met the Queen of Hearts who shouted "Off with her head!" After some convincing by the King of Hearts, Alice's life was saved and she was invited to play a game of croquet. This, however, was no ordinary game of croquet. "Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet ground in her life: it was all ridges and furrows; the croquet balls were live hedgehogs, and the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches." Can you imagine playing such a crazy game?
In today's activity, you will create your own wacky croquet ground: first a mini version, and then, if you'd like, an extra large version!
Did You Know?
- Croquet was first played in the seventeenth century in England. Played on a green, the game uses mallets, 4 inch balls, and wickets that are shaped like an upside-down 'U.'
- The game involves a great deal of strategy and understanding of the ways that balls roll and respond to hills, hits, and highlands.
- Engineers use technology to design all sorts of things from high performance tennis equipment to precision sneakers. If you enjoy technology and design, you might consider a career in engineering.
Materials: What You'll Need
- ruler
- marbles
- paper clips
- pencil
- miscellaneous recycled materials: toilet paper tubes, popsicle sticks, yogurt containers, etc.
- larger ball
Activity: Try It!
- Design your own crazy croquet course! Start by experimenting with rolling marbles. Roll them down a ruler or a book, up a paper towel tube and across the floor. Try adjusting the height of the ruler or book. What do you notice? What seems to make the marble go further?
- Once you've experimented for a while, design your own croquet course. Use a pencil to create a mallet, paper clips as wickets, and rulers and books to create hills. Add in any other materials you'd like. Remember, this is a crazy croquet course, so you can make up your own rules too!
- Pretend that you are a bird flying above your mini-croquet ground. What does the bird see? Make a plan drawing (a drawing from above) of your croquet ground.
- Now that you've made a mini-version of a croquet ground, try designing a giant croquet course. Ask your parent to play croquet with you!
Connect It to Standards:
"As a result of activities in grades K-4, all students should develop abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry," ... including the ability to "use data to construct a reasonable explanation." (NSES)
Adventure into the Newspaper
- Cut out different letters from the newspaper. Put the letters together to create new and wacky words. Write definitions for the new words that you have created.
- Look through the Mercury News to find the Sports Section. Do any of the sports listed use mallets? Make up a new game using information that you find in the Sports Section. Write a story about your new game.
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