Simon the Zealot (Matthew 12)

Simon the Zealot is transformed by becoming part of Jesus’ Apostles, his change is psychological and not physical, meanwhile the man with the shrivelled hand undergoes a very physical transformation. This pop-up craft begs us to question how the characters are transformed and how does our relationship with Jesus transform us?

Print the pdf onto paper, there are 2 pages, one page is the background with words so printing it is optional. You need one set of printouts per child as well as scissors and glue. The printout includes brief instructions.

For printing in Colour PDF – two pages
For printing with no Colour (grey not blank to colour) PDF – two pages

Carefully cut round the four pieces. If you have younger children you can use the dotted lines to make cutting and folding easier. If you have older children then carefully cut round the hands, the shoulders and the head. If your children are very young I’d recommend doing all the cutting and folding in advance.

Cut along the sides of the centre box (largest cut out piece), then fold the box forwards along the middle line. You will want to fold this do it can comfortably fold either forwards or backwards.

Making sure you are folded backwards (so the picture is on the outside) and fold along the corner lines. Like the other fold line these need to be folded both ways.

These two little darts need to fold inwards so when the design is closed it looks like you’ve cut off the corners. Now the mechanism part is finished.

Take the smaller piece with the shrivelled hand man. There is a line just below his chin that needs to be folded, make sure you also fold the edges of the two other characters shoulders.

Lastly, fold the two arms along their fold lines.

Folding completed, lets get gluing. Start by attaching both parts of the characters. With the mechanism part folded forwards, glue the other character piece in place making sure it lines up to look like one image!

Add a little glue to the arm either side of the fold and glue onto the darts. Only glue onto one half of the dart – it looks better if you glue right into the folded corner.