Make It! Crafts and building projects

✨ Pick a project

🎈 Papier-mâché

Ages 5+ with help · Messy · Takes a few days to dry

1. Make the paste: stir flour into water, about 1 part flour to 1 or 2 parts water, until it’s smooth and runny like thin pancake batter.
2. Dip and wipe: dip a strip, then slide it between two fingers to wipe off the extra paste.
3. Layer it: lay strips over a blown-up balloon, crossing directions each layer. Do 3 or 4 layers.
4. Dry: let it dry completely, usually a day or more, turning it now and then. Add more layers for strength.
5. Finish: pop the balloon, trim the edges and paint it.

Ideas: a globe or planets for a solar system, a hot-air balloon, a mask, a bowl, or a piñata for a birthday.

⭐ Salt dough ornaments and fossils

Ages 4+ · Needs an oven (adult)

1. Mix the flour and salt, then add water a little at a time and knead until smooth, like play dough.
2. Roll it about 1 cm thick and cut shapes. Poke a hole near the top with a straw if you want to hang it.
3. Make fossils: press a shell, a leaf, a toy dinosaur’s feet or a pine cone into the dough, then lift it out.
4. Bake at a low heat, about 120°C (250°F), for 2 to 3 hours until hard, or air-dry for a few days.
5. Cool, then paint.

Pair your fossils with a trip to see real ones at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller.

🎨 No-cook play dough

Ages 3+ · 10 minutes

1. Mix the flour and salt in a bowl.
2. Add the oil, a few drops of food colouring and most of the warm water.
3. Stir, then knead with your hands, adding a little more water or flour until it’s soft and not sticky.
4. Store it in a sealed bag or container.

🌀 Pinwheel

Ages 5+ with help · 15 minutes

1. Draw both diagonals across the square, corner to corner.
2. Cut along each line from the corner toward the middle, stopping about 2 cm from the centre.
3. Bend every other point into the middle, overlapping them.
4. Push the pin through all the points and the centre, then into the side of the eraser. Leave a little gap so it spins freely.

Blow on it, or take it outside. In Lethbridge, it won’t be waiting long for wind.

🧭 Wind vane

Ages 6+ · Measures the weather

1. Cut a small triangle (the arrow point) and a bigger square (the tail) from cardboard. Tape them into slits at each end of the straw.
2. Push the pin through the middle of the straw into the pencil eraser, so the straw can spin.
3. Turn the cup upside down on the plate, poke the pencil down through the cup’s bottom and tape the cup to the plate.
4. Write N, E, S and W around the plate’s edge. Take it outside and line up N with north.

How to read it: the arrow points to where the wind is coming from. A west wind is a classic chinook wind here. Check your reading against our live station.

🌧 Pop bottle rain gauge

Ages 6+ with help · Measures the weather

1. An adult cuts the top off the bottle where it starts to narrow.
2. Put a handful of pebbles in the bottom to keep it from tipping. Pour in water until it just covers the pebbles; that water line is your zero.
3. Tape a ruler to the side with 0 at the water line, or mark centimetres with the marker.
4. Flip the cut-off top upside down into the bottle like a funnel and tape it.
5. Set it out in the open, away from roofs and trees. After rain, read the new level, then pour back down to zero.

Keep a rain diary for a month and compare it with our station’s numbers.

🪁 Plastic bag kite

Ages 7+ with help · Best on a breezy day

1. Cut the bag open into a flat sheet, then cut a diamond shape about 50 cm tall.
2. Tape one stick down the middle from top to bottom, and the other across, a little above the middle.
3. Tie your flying line where the two sticks cross, poking through the plastic and taping around the hole.
4. Add a tail of plastic strips at the bottom to keep it steady.

❄ Ice lanterns

Ages 4+ · Winter, needs a cold night

1. Fill the bucket with water, then push the cup into the middle and weigh it down with rocks, so its rim sits a bit above the water.
2. Drop in berries, cedar sprigs or leaves for colour.
3. Leave it outside overnight when it’s well below freezing.
4. Pour a little warm water into the cup to free it, then flip the bucket and let a little warm water run over the outside to slide the lantern out.
5. Set a battery tea light inside and line your walkway.

🎯 Craft-stick catapult

Ages 6+ · A real physics lesson

1. Stack 5 sticks and wrap an elastic tightly around each end.
2. Stack 2 sticks and wrap an elastic around one end only.
3. Slide the 5-stick stack between the 2 sticks, near the bound end, so it opens into a V.
4. Cross an elastic over the joint to hold it, then tape or band the spoon to the top stick.
5. Load a marshmallow, press down and let go.

Try moving the stack closer to or farther from the hinge and measure how far your marshmallow flies. That’s the science of levers. Soft things only, and never aim at people or pets.

⚽ Cardboard marble run

Ages 5+ · Great on a cold day

1. Cut some tubes in half lengthwise to make open chutes.
2. Tape the tubes and chutes to the box or wall in a zig-zag, each one tilting down to the next.
3. Test with a marble and adjust the angles. Too steep and it flies off; too flat and it stops.
4. Add a cup at the bottom to catch it, and time your run.

🍂 Nature art

All ages · Get outside first

• Leaf rubbings: lay a leaf vein-side up under thin paper and rub over it with the side of a crayon.
• Painted rocks: wash and dry smooth rocks, paint them with acrylic paint, and seal them with clear coat once dry.
• Pressed flowers: lay flowers between sheets of paper inside a heavy book for a week or two, then glue them onto a card.
• Pine cone critters: add googly eyes, pipe cleaners and felt to make owls, hedgehogs or turkeys.

Only pick flowers and leaves from your own yard or with permission, and never in parks or nature reserves.

🧶 Sock and paper-bag puppets

Ages 3+ · Put on a show

• Sock puppet: an old sock, buttons or felt for eyes, yarn for hair. Glue, or have a grown-up sew, the pieces on.
• Paper-bag puppet: a paper lunch bag folded flat. The bottom flap becomes the mouth. Draw or glue on a face.
• Puppet theatre: drape a blanket over a table, or cut a window in a big box.

Make a weather-reporter puppet and give the forecast from our 5-day forecast.

Keep making

• Discovery Zone home
• Hands-On Weather Science: catch snowflakes and more experiments
• Weather Wonders: the wild weather your instruments can measure