DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Space Collage Craft

Dinosaurs and spaceships seem to be two things that span all generations.  My kids are as fascinated by outer space as I was at my age.  Take some time to talk about some of the great historical moments in space travel or about what's happening currently.  This is a great craft to make before taking a trip to Florida (insert wistful sigh)!

Materials:

• printer,
• aluminum foil,
• paper,
• scissors,
• glue,
• something to colour with
• a pen or marker.
• Optional:
  • shoe box,
  • string,
  • sparkle glue,
  • a picture of the child,
  • tissue paper.

Instructions:

• Print out the template of choice.
• Color craft pieces if you printed the black and white version of the template.
• Cut out the pieces.
• You can also just design your own diarama without the template pieces!

SPACESHIP:

• Cover the space ship piece entirely with Aluminum foil so you have a nice shiny spaceship (apply glue to the template piece so the Aluminum foil will stick on).
   
  • For older kids, you can use a single piece of Aluminum foil and wrap it carefully around the template piece.
  • For younger kids, it's likely easier to rip the Aluminum foil into one inch square pieces and let them glue those all over the template.
• Glue on decorations.  Some ideas are:
   
  • one of the flags or the word NASA on the tail
  • a picture of your child (or a magazine picture of a person) where the window would be.  You can make the outline of a window with a square scrap of paper.
  • sparkle glue swirls

COLLAGE:

• You can either make a paper collage or a shoe box collage, depending on the child's dexterity and the supplies you have on hand.
• For the easier paper collage, simply glue the planets and stars to a piece of black or blue construction paper (or a piece of white paper which has been painted or coloured a dark colour).
   
  • You can also add balled up pieces of tissue paper as small planets or stars.  You can also decorate further with sparkle glue.
  • Then glue your decorated spaceship on overtop of your collage.
• For the more difficult shoe box collage, paint the inside of the shoe box a dark color (or cover the inside with dark coloured paper).
   
  • Glue planets on the inside of the box (it should be tipped up on its side for viewing).
  • Again, use balled up tissue paper or sparkle glue to decorate further.
  • Poke a hole in the top of the spaceship and in the top of the tipped up shoe box.  Hang the spaceship with a piece of thread, fishing line or yarn (the thread or fishing line will be hard to see and will make the ship look like it's flying)
  • You can also hang a painted tennis ball or styrofoam ball the same way to make a 3D planet or sun (let the kids use their imagination)

Templates:

• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP in most browsers).

Template 1   (color)    or   (B&W)

Template 2   (color)    or   (B&W)

Print friendly version of these instructions

Tasha's Space Diorama

Here is a picture of the space diarama that Tasha made in grade 6.   Tasha painted a shoe box black and then painted stars on the inside.  After cutting a large styrofoam ball in half she covered it with plasticine to make the moon and set that inside the shoe box.  Using Sculpy clay that requires baking she created two astronauts, a spaceship and a little Earth.  The Earth was hung from the top corner of the open box using a little bit of black thread.