Making Funny Weather Vanes

Children can make their own fun weather vanes.

Making funny weather vanes can be a fun crafts project for children. You can personalize weather vanes with funny images and colors. Making the weather vanes using construction paper allows children to explore their creative ideas.

Things You'll Need

• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Adhesive tape
• Pencil with eraser
• Straw
• Pin
• Ruler
• Glue
• Stick

Instructions

1. Place a piece of construction paper on a table. Draw the head of an arrow and the tail of an arrow using a pencil. While the head should simply be a triangle, the tail can be drawn any way you please. For example, if the weather vane will be a fish, aim for the triangle to be the head and draw a fish tail for the arrow tail.

2. Cut out the pieces just drawn with scissors. Place the pieces on top of the construction paper and create two identical pieces by outlining the shapes and cutting them out.

3. Connect the front of the arrow to the end of the straw on one side with tape. Connect the identical piece of the front to the other side of the straw. The two identical pieces should line up.

4. Tape the tail of the arrow on to the end of the straw, opposite the front. Place the two identical pieces next to each other so they line up and cover the end of the straw. Tape them together securely.

5. Place a pencil with an eraser close to the straw, so the pencil is perpendicular to the straw. Push a pin through the straw and into the eraser head.

6. Measure the distance between the arrow head and the arrow tail. Use this length and a height of 4 inches to create an oval shape. Get creative with two pieces of construction paper, one for each side. You could create a fish vane by making a fish body with gills or create a cow vane by adding black spots to a white cow body.

7. Glue the outside border of the "body" pieces of the weather vane just created. The glue should go all of the way around, except where the straw will intersect. When ready, line up the two pieces on both sides of the straw and glue the ends of the oval shapes tightly together.

References

• Arctic Climate Modeling: Weather Vanes