Snakes Alive! Yet Another Tutorial

You remember all those milk bottle tops?

Well today we used them for our Holiday Bible Club Craft. The bible story was about Moses and Aaron speaking to Pharaoh – and Aaron’s staff turned into a snake [Exodus 7]

For each child you will need the following

• a handful of bottle tops [around 30-40 each]
• a champagne cork
• half a wine bottle cork
• half a shoelace
• a pair of ‘goggle eyes’

The tops and corks were donated by our congregation – and the shoelaces were on cards of twelve pairs from the PoundShop [DollarStore] The eyes came from The Works, 99p a pack.

Beforehand, ask someone to slice the wine corks in half and drill them, and also drill the champagne corks and bottle tops. Then paint all corks green. Cut laces in half [ours ended up 35-45cm long] and make a firm double knot on the cut end.

Thread the aglet** through the champagne cork [easiest way is to use a bent pipecleaner like a traditional needle threader] Now let the children thread on their bottle tops, until there is about 6cm of lace left. Thread on the half-cork. Make a double knot. Stick on the eyes, draw a mouth on the champagne cork.

Voila! a snake

This is my ‘Demo-Snake’ – but the children have really loved making their this morning – even the teenagers wanted to do them!

This craft ticks all my boxes for Holiday Club

1. The materials were free/incredibly cheap [less than 10p per child] and people are pleased to help collect them for you
2. There wasn’t too much skill needed to make a snake
3. But there was scope for individuality in terms of arrangement of coloured tops, and placement of eyes etc.
4. For younger children it is good for counting, sorting and hand-eye co-ordination [sorry – that’s all ‘teacher speak’!]
5. It can be used for loads of different Bible stories e.g. Creation, Adam&Eve, Noah’s ark, Aaron’s rod [as today] Moses “snake on a stick” [Numbers 21] Paul and the viper [Acts 28]

Having just typed it, I am quite taken with the idea of “Snake On a Stick” – it sounds like a bizarre form of street food!

**Aglet is the proper name for the stiffened end of a shoelace.

so now you know!