DIY Kaleidoscope
An adult’s help, cardboard tube, sheet of mirror cardboard (or ordinary cardboard with foil glued to it), sticky tape, clear plastic (from old takeaway container), frosted plastic (from milk jug), black cardboard, transparent coloured objects (such as beads, cut coloured straws, cellophane), coloured card and washi tape for decorating.
1. Decorate the cardboard tube. Cut out a strip of coloured cardboard and tape it around the centre of the tube.
Measure the width of the hole in the tube. 2. Cut three long strips of the mirror card 2 mm smaller than the tube width. My tube was 4.3 cm wide so the strips needed to be 4.1 cm wide.
3. Now cut the strips 1 cm shorter than the tube. My tube is 21 cm long so the strips are 20 cm long.
4. Stick together the strips in a triangle shape with the shiny side facing inwards. Push this inside the tube all the way to the bottom.
5. Cut a disc of both the clear and frosted plastic by tracing around the circumference of the tube as a guide and cutting just inside the line to make it fit inside the tube.
6. Push the clear plastic disc in to sit tightly on top of the triangle prism.
7. Pour the coloured objects on top and finish with the frosted plastic. Secure this with sticky tape.
8. Cut a disc from the black paper and a smaller circle inside for a peep hole.
9. Stick this down on the other end of the kaleidoscope. Use this side to look through. Turn your kaleidoscope around to change the view.
Invented in 1816 by a Scottish scientist named David Brewster, a kaleidoscope is one of my favourite ‘toys’. I love holding a kaleidoscope up to the light, twisting the end and watching as the pieces fit together—the patterns they form are amazing. When I get a pattern I really love sometimes I try and hold very still because once I twist the end again or move slightly the pattern changes. However, although it’s different more times than not, the pattern becomes my ‘new favourite’! Like the patterns of a kaleidoscope, God made us all unique and different, too—and it’s our differences that make us special. No matter what we look like, what we are good at, what twists and turns are happening in our life there’s one thing that we can be sure will never change—God’s love for us! (Romans 8:35 & 38–39)
