To the moon and stars... and back downstairs again...

Any familiar readers will know that we've touched on rockets before when discussing how kids often think they're not good at arts and craft, yet when they get down to it, can create works that they're deeply proud of.

Our Crafty Box subscribers will also know that we have had a little focus on ‘things that fly’… our 3^rd Crafty Box was centred around animals that fly and we included crafts for making different types of birds, flying fish and and a bird house.

Our latest Crafty Box is about man made ‘things that fly’ and we found ourselves looking at rockets again.  We've both made plastic bottle rockets with our kids before so we wanted to try a different version and came up with a kitchen roll rocket.  You can also make these rockets with toilet rolls but we've been told that schools and nurseries may not be able to use toilet rolls for crafts due to health and safety… should you feel comfortable with toilet rolls, go ahead.  Our little foxes make lots of things with toilet rolls so we keep lots in a box!

For the kitchen roll rocket you will need;

• A kitchen roll
• Foil
• Glue and sticky tape
• Scraps of paper
• Paint
• Light card or heavy paper
• Scissors
• Our template for rocket fins
• Tissue paper or bright coloured ribbons or raffia string

Paint your kitchen roll.
While it dries, (check pic below) draw a circle with a roughly 5cm radius and inside this, a circle with a 3.5cm radius.
Cut out your circle and make snips from the outside to the 3.5cm line and one final snip to the centre of the circle.
Fold the circle into a cone and glue or tape together.

Take a 17ish cm strip of foil an fold both long edges in to give your strip a nice tidy shape.

Copy our template below, cut out 3 rocket fins from your heavy paper.

Fold them down the middle and glue the larger parts together leaving the outer strips glue free.

Now that the painted roll is dry, put your cone on the top of your kitchen roll and bring the frilled edge down so that it attaches to the roll and hold in place with sticky tape.

Cover your cone in foil and then wrap around your straight edged foil strip where the foil from the cone overlaps the kitchen roll.

Your fins will need to be attached approx. 5cm apart around the tube and you can either glue them to the outside then paint in the same colour as your rocket, or, cut 6cm snips upwards from the base, 5cm apart around the base and slide the fins into place. 

Cover the protruding parts of the fins with tin foil. 

Paint or draw on your windows and rocket name/initials.  Alternatively, make these from scraps of paper and stick them on.

Stuff the tissue paper inside the rocket so that it spills out like flames

For the plastic bottle rocket... 

...you will need;

• A plastic bottle
• Foil
• Scissors
• An egg carton
• Tissue paper or coloured strips of paper
• Scraps of paper
• Sticky tape

1. Cover your bottle in foil
2. Cut out 3 or 4 cups from the egg carton and cover in foil
3. Make a door and windows and cut out initials for your rocket’s name and decorate your rocket
4. Using sticky tape, attach your foiled egg carton cups to the bottom of the rocket
5. Again, use tape to stick your tissue paper ‘flames’ into the egg cups

The bottle rocket is certainly one which younger hands will find more fun, they get to squish and press the foil, it's a very tactile craft.  My young fox had been certain that he could never make anything look as he thought it should look but at 4 years old, this rocket changed everything.  He was proud as punch with this one and we stuck it to the bedroom wall under his giant foil moon and stars.  Every now and then, he would thunder up the stairs and come running back down with shiny rocket to show it off to any friends and family who had not yet witnessed his NASA craft.