High Seas Craft: Spyglass Telescope

Set sail for your High Seas Expedition VBS with this fun telescope craft.

Give each child one piece of construction paper, a blank mailing label, and one empty paper towel tube. (Clear plastic lids are optional. Clear lids from chip cans and yogurt cups work well.) Have the child paint the paper towel tube and decorate it to look like a spyglass or telescope.

While the tube dries, have him print the day’s memory verse or Bible point on a mailing label. Have the words preprinted for younger children. Say the memory verse together while the children work.

When the tube is dry, help each child roll a sheet of construction paper into a tube that will just fit inside the painted tube. Have him place the paper roll in the tube and tape it together so the paper roll is as large as possible. Encourage older children to help younger ones.

Show the child how to twist the tubes so the paper roll slides in and out of the cardboard tube to form the scope. Have the child say a silent prayer of thanks for each classmate as he looks at him or her through the telescope.

To cover the end of the telescope, give each child a clear plastic lid or a piece of clear plastic. Have him trace the end of the paper roll onto the lid or plastic and cut out a circle slightly larger than the opening of the roll. Let him glue or tape the plastic circle to the end of the paper roll.

The Bible point for Day 2 of the High Seas Expedition VBS is that God’s Word is comforting. As the children work, talk about how God comforted Paul in a storm and how God comforts us when we go through hard times.