Make a Homemade Kaleidoscope

Learn how to make a homemade kaleidoscope from best out of waste materials at home with your children! It’s amazingly easy to make this favored toy and we all know how much fun it is to use an actual kaleidoscope, right? The changing colours give endless hours of fun.

Make a homemade Kaleidoscope from best out of waste materials

It’s incredible, really, that you can turn two toilet paper rolls (or one kitchen towel roll), a lid from a take away container, a few beads and mirror stickers into this fun toy! My kids really loved making it too and we have had hours of fun with it afterwards too. This is also one of those few craft activities that kids of all ages can enjoy. We each made one and my 5-year old, 9-year old and 12-year old all had fun making it.

What do you need to make a kaleidoscope:

Kitchen towel rolls. You will need one for each kaleidoscope. Otherwise you can tape two toilet paper rolls together. We did that too.

Acrylic mirrors. If you have cutting the tools for it, you can buy a bigger mirror and cut long thin rectangles out of it. We didn’t want to over-complicate it, so we used these square mirrors. They are not sharp so no one is going to get cut during this activity -which is always a plus! They also already have sticky tape on one side, so no glue is needed.

Paper. Any paper will do. I found an old roll of handmade paper but even an A4 sheet of printer paper would do.

Tape. Any transparent tape will work.

Take away container lids. Or any similar semi-hard plastic which is transparent and easy to cut into a circle.

Beads. We used any kind of big beads. I later realized that translucent beads are best for this project as the wooden beads become quite dark inside the kaleidoscope. The translucent coloured beads show the colours much better.

Paper or paint to decorate the kaleidoscope. We used a piece of glitter foam paper and covered the end with some leftover glittery tape.

Hole punch. Or even a small pointy stick will do to make the hole. The hole punch will be more accurate but use whatever you have available.

My top tips to make a homemade kaleidoscope with kids

I love when everyone feels they did a good job and everyone has fun. To accomplish this, I stick to these basic principles:

• Keep all the ingredients ready before you start.
• Let everyone make their own and only help whenever it’s needed. Let the kids do as much as they can by themselves. They are so proud afterwards and that joy is to be treasured.
• Follow the detailed steps below the ingredients to make it easier (and if possible read ahead a little so you know what to do next)
• Wait for each other so you are all on the same step. It’s important that no one feels left behind and it becomes a joined activity.

If you love best out of waste as much as we do, you might also like these ideas:

• Best out of waste Basket
• Best Out of Waste Animal Pencil Holder
• DIY Sorting Hat (best out of waste)
• Best Out Of Waste Castle
• Barbie Doll Throne (best-out-of-waste)

Please note that you need to adjust the amount of mirrors to the length of your kitchen towel roll. You can always add another small piece of another toilet paper roll (or cut a little off) to make it fit properly. You need approximately 18-21 square mirrors for one kaleidoscope.