How to Make a Kids Sea-View Pirate Telescope

This is the coolest pirate telescope that kids can make! It has a view with moving water and whatever kind of sea picture your kiddo wants to have (we did a pirate ship!).

Older kids can make almost the entire project themselves, while littler ones can help decorate the telescope, and certainly PLAY with it!!!

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Making the Sea View Telescope

You Will Need:

a paper cup
a paper towel roll
blue food colouring
a small see-through cylindrical container with lid that is a little bigger than the opening in the paper towel roll and about 1/2″ to 1″ deep
acrylic paints or Paint Marker Pens
glue gun
tape (electrical tape works great!)
stuff to decorate the outside of the telescope (we used black and gold paint, gold and black fun foam sheets, thread and plastic beads)

Steps:

Fill your plastic container 1/4 with water and add one drop of blue food colouring. Seal it shut with a glue gun and/or electrical tape so it doesn’t leak (we used both).

On the outside of the container, use acrylic paints or paint markers (really easy for kids to use) to draw a scene. We drew a ship floating in the water.

You could also suggest your kids draw a desert island, or a lighthouse, or seabirds, or whatever else they like!

Now place the paper towel roll on the bottom of the cup and trace around the roll and cut that circle out so the roll can fit through the cup.

Once the roll is inserted into the cup, glue gun the small container onto the end of the paper towel roll that is inside the cup. The container will now be inside the cup, and it will hold the paper towel roll together with the cup.

You may decide to trim the end of the paper towel roll to make the telescope the length you want it.

Now it’s time to decorate!

Paint your telescope, add sticky-backed fun foam to jazz it up, add a skull and bones, sequins, rick-rack, or other stickers etc.

You can also punch a hole in one end an add some string or twine with beads to help your kiddo carry his/her telescope around.

Hope your kids have fun with this one! Onetime loved seeing the moving water inside and making a little storm for his ship. This telescope was a favourite toy for weeks!