I am super psyched to bring you this water bottle comet craft. You will turn a water bottle into a rocket that shoots across the sky. It’s simple, inexpensive, and it is so much fun to play with after the project is complete.
I’m wondering if this is a Meaningful Mama original. Sometimes I think I have something brand new to present, and then I Google it and my heart sinks as I realize it has been done before. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve subliminally seen things on Pinterest or if other people have just come up with similar ideas. I Googled “water bottle comet craft” and “water bottle rocket craft,” and I came up with nothing. Nothing. I saw some rocket ships made from water bottles, but nothing that flies like this. Has this really never been done? Do me a favor, don’t tell me if you have seen it before. Let me just have a moment.
All you need is an empty water bottle, scissors, tape, and plastic table cloths. I bought these at the Dollar Tree. I’m sure you could also use streamers or tissue paper, but I really thought the plastic table cloths would last longer.
Older kids may be able to do this step on their own, but I cut strips of table cloth in preparation for my littler kids. I kept the table cloth folded, so I could cut a number of strips at one time.
I also cut the water bottles for them, as show above.
Then, I let them get to work at taping the strips into the inside of bottom edge and inside of the water bottle. I really helped Corban. I would pull the pieces of tape for him. You will want to demonstrate how you pull the tape, add it do the end of the strip and then tape it into the inside of the water bottle, letting the strips hang down. This is a very easy craft for kids of all ages and perfect for the non-crafty mom.
Have them keep working, adding strips all the way around. They can add as many strips as they want. I am watching a friend’s daughter once a week, so she was able to join us for this activity.
They will have a water bottle that is beginning to look like a comet.
To cover the tape and make it look cleaner, I added red strips around the outer edge of the bottle using double sided tape.
Once the comet is created, the kids will definitely be ready to let them fly.
I was so impressed with how these things took flight, and the kids had a blast.
They kept their comets flying for quite some time. I was able to introduce them to the concept of a comet through this activity too. This was a new vocabulary word for them.
If you enjoy crafts that encourage play, I bet you’d also enjoy these:
This is great! I’m adding this to our to-do list right now!
Your kids look like they are having so much fun making this craft.
We had a lot of fun making it and even more fun flying it. Thanks!
How fun is this??? So easy and fun for kids. I am excited to PIN this.
Coolest Mom ever!
Clicked through from your magnetic dolls guest post and glad I did! So many fun ideas, will be following!
Yay! I’m so glad to have a new reader. Looks like you have a fun site too. FOllowing on Facebook now. 🙂
This is awesome! (And no I’ve never seen these before anywhere else
Thanks so much. It’s a lot of fun.
How awesome! I’m going to do this with my kiddos tomorrow. so glad I found the link to this on facebook. Thanks for sharing!
Did you have fun with it? I’m hope you guys found it easy and that your kids love it.
This was a fantastic craft for our Kids Bible Club. We put holes close to the cut edge of the bottle and just had the kids thread the streamers through. We let the decorate bottle and streamer with colorful Sharpies. That was fun. Then we went outside.And that’s when the real fun erupted! The kids played a bit at the games I had thought of( whose went the farthest, whose could land in a rope circle on the ground) but then they quickly invented their own games. It was amazing to see kids from 4-13 years old playing joyfully together without any electronics at all! I don’t know how long they would have kept at it because I finally had to call them in.
Thank you so much for telling me your experience. I love the ideas to decorate the bottles as well, and threading the streamers through holes was super clever. Kids are amazing, and it brings me joy to know much fun was had!
I used this water bottle comet as a craft for the Bible story about Elijah and the Prophets of Baal. It’s a great reminder that God rained fire from heaven!
I love that. What a great idea. I hope the kids had a blast.