Toddler STEAM: Kaleidoscope

O-man and I haven’t done a specific art project in a while, but I have been pinning a ton of STEM/STEAM things for my SIL who teaches elementary school. This afternoon we had extra time before dinner, so I scrolled all those pins and found a quick fun project that we miraculously had all of the materials for. Literally I gathered the materials in about 1 minute, and the project was done in 15 minutes - O-man doesn't usually complete projects that last longer than that.

You can find the official instructions here: https://buggyandbuddy.com/science-for-kids-how-to-make-a-kaleidoscope/

I am all about making projects easily accessible and done, so the fewer special materials needed, the better. We made a couple of modifications, but the results were still successful enough for my 3 year old.

Our Materials:

-toilet paper roll
-cardstock
-straw
-aluminum foil
-scissors
-tape
-circular object about 3.75" in diameter (to trace circles)
-crayons/markers (for decorating)

Our Modifications:

- We didn’t bother painting the toilet paper roll. I let O-man color on it while I traced and cut out the circles.

- Speaking of circles, I didn’t take the time to print the template - the canister of raisins was close enough in size that I just traced the bottom of it a couple of times on a piece of card stock.

- O-man marked on the circles, and I added a bit of variety for better viewing results. (He did this step as I was working on the aluminum foil.)

- We didn’t have Mylar sheets, but we did have aluminum foil. I just tore a big piece and folded it over a couple of times, with the shiny side out, to make it thicker. You could cut it to size at that point, but again, I didn’t bother. I just tri-folded it into a prism and taped a couple of times. You do want it to fit snuggly in the toilet paper roll - I had to refold a couple of times. It was too long, so I just cut it to size and reshaped it a bit.

- The last steps were just assembly - tape straw on top, put prism on the inside, poke hole in center of circles (I just used scissors), and ta-da! O-man kept tipping the kaleidoscope, making the prism fall out, so I lightly taped the end in a couple of places to help hold it in.

- The circles are easy enough for O-man to spin and switch on his own - BONUS!