EARLY YEARS EXPERIENCE: OTHER CRAFT IDEAS

CRAFT IDEAS - Other Ideas

Rocket Firework

You will need: 

Half of a cardboard tube from inside a kitchen roll 

Coloured paper

Coloured card

Yellow and orange crepe paper or tissue

Glue

Glitter

Either some tape or a small stapler

Cut a piece of coloured paper 12cmx14cm, this allows for a 1cm overlap.

Decorate the paper with swirls of glue and sprinkle on some glitter until the glue is covered, shake off any surplus, and then leave the paper to dry.

While the glue design is drying, cut out a piece of card with a diameter of 10cm then cut out a segment as shown and glue the two straight edges together to form a cap.

Glue the decorated paper around the card tube overlapping it slightly, then using scissors snip down about 2cm all around one end of the tube and bend these flaps inwards.

Put some glue on to these flaps and place the cap on top, hold it in place until it has stuck.

Either tape or staple the straw to the inside of the bottom end of the tube. ( You can glue it, but it is quite difficult to hold in place).

Cut out 4 or 5 streamers (1cm x 15cm) from the crepe or tissue, and  glue them to the same side of the tube as the straw. 

To finish off tuck a scrunched up piece of crepe or tissue inside the tube to fill the bottom.

You could make a firework mobile by making several different coloured fireworks and hanging them at different heights from two crossed wires. 

Making play sunglasses

You will need: 

Coloured card
Coloured cellophane
Glue
Paint or crayons
Glitter

To make the sun glasses you will first need to decide on the shape of the glasses you want eg oval, square or maybe heart shaped. The sizes shown to the right are for a child about four years of age but can easily be adjusted to fit a smaller or larger child.

You can make the glasses out of one length of card as shown top right. To do this you will need a piece of card 36cm x 4cm.

You may prefer to make the glasses using three pieces of card, allowing you to position the sides of the glasses differently. To do this you will need to cut one piece 12cm x 4cm and two pieces 13cm x 2cm.

Before cutting the glasses out of the card, make a template out of pape. Fold the paper in half as shown before drawing your design on one half and then cut out the design with the paper still folded to ensure the glasses are symetrical.

Cut the paper the same size as the card, fold in half and draw out the shape of the glasses you want using the sizes shown as a guidline.

If you are using three pieces you will only fold the front of the glasses, and make a template for one side of the glasses. With the dimensions above, 1cm has been allowed on the side for gluing onto the glasses front.

Once you are happy with the design, use the template to draw around onto the card and then cut out the glasses. Decorate the glasses, glue on the sides if appropriate and then cut two pieces of cellophane to fit in the rims and glue on the back.

These glasses are obviously just for fun and children should not wear them for protection against the sun.