Activity Overview
Create these adorable Foil Ball Bouncing Bugs for a fun craft that will be played with long after craft time is through. These insects are made with foil at their core and suspend from an elastic band so that you can hold them and the flutter and bounce around
This craft is great for all age groups and can be individualized with the shape of wings, the kind of eyes, the length of your legs and antennae and how you choose to decorate the body of your insect. You can also add two more legs and lose the antennae to create Foil Ball Bouncing Spiders as well. It is a great way to teach the differences between insects and spiders.
Materials Needed
- Foil
- Elastic cording or a large elastic band cut to a long string
- Card stock
- Glitter
- Scissors
- Tacky Glue
- Googly eyes
- Black Sharpie Marker
How to Make Them
- Tear a square piece of aluminum foil. Scrunch the center of the foil by pinching it.
- Tie a long piece of elastic cording around the part that you just pinched.
- Scrunch the entire piece of foil into a tight ball.
- Snip Tissue paper into many pieces
- Lay the tissue foil ball on a sheet of wax paper and use a paintbrush to brush the entire foiled ball with glue.
- Use your finger to press each tissue paper segment onto the foil ball, adding more glue as necessary until the foil ball is completely covered with tissue paper pieces.
- Allow the foil ball to dry.
- Fold a piece of card stock in half and on the crease, draw a half of a square with three insect legs as shown above.
- Cut the insect leg set out without cutting on the fold. You will have an 6 legged segment.
- At the bottom of the ball beneath the elastic cord, glue the square center portion of the leg set onto the ball.
- Bend the legs as if they have a knee and foot.
- Cut two 4 inch thin strips of paper and curl them with a pencil. Glue them to the top of the bug's head.
- Glue the googly eyes to the insect's face.
- Add a happy little mouth with your Sharpie Marker.
- Cut out some wings in a desired shape, coat with glue and add glitter to the wings. Glue them onto the top of your insect behind the antennae.
- Use stickers or tissue paper strips to decorate your bug.
