James and John (Mark 10)

James and John have 2 crafts, this being the second. The idea behind these is that only when you let go of control it becomes beautiful, that height only comes from the bottom up.

This is a modification of the SonicDad’s design with labels that fit the story – their original can be found here.

I would recommend this craft for older groups, minimum age of 7 upwards, both because of the strong glue and as younger ones may find difficulty making them fly. My hubby played with his prototype for weeks, they really are fun, and much simpler to make than it may seem at first.

For this craft you will need scissors, a pencil, a glue stick, 2-3 tongue depressors, a toothpick, 1 disposable chopstick (or doweling), a hot glue gun and the PDF printout (contains 4 sets of decoration per page).

If you trust a hot glue gun with your group of children then you can do the whole craft together, alternatively you can prep the final stage of the craft in advance using a hot glue gun and have them attach the other pieces using superglue.

Take a tongue depressor and cut off the 2 round ends, split the remaining stick into 3 sections of about 4.5cm each. These are support bases to which everything is attached – each child only needs 1. It makes life a little easier if you use a pencil to mark the middle on both sides.

To make the propellers we first need to create an angle. This is done by snipping the sharp ends off a toothpick, then split the remaining piece in half. Using either a glue gun or superglue attach the 2 pieces of toothpick to diagonally opposite edges of the support base. Remember to give them a moment to dry!

The propellers are 2 more tongue depressors : minus a round end. Attach with either a glue gun or the superglue to the toothpick and the base. Again leave a moment to dry.

This bit needs to be done with a glue gun but prepared teachers could do it in advance.

Mark on the support base a small cross to show the middle. Place a large blob of hot glue in the middle of the cross and glue the flat widest end of the chopstick as central as possible.

Optional – if the glue gun blob has not created a wall round the join you should do so yourself – while not needed for this one, the spinner on the right did need the extra support.

I used disposable chopsticks as they worked out the cheapest, but doweling may work out cheaper for you.

When complete your wooden mechanism is ready for decoration. There is a variety of options on the pdf printout and 3 minutes with some scissors and a glue stick really makes a big difference.

To fly the spinner roll the chopstick or doweling between your hands and flick slightly upwards. This version will fly upwards but generally not so high they can’t be used indoors.

Please do take precautions to fly your spinners safely!