Creating lighthouses brings in a crowd

This project never fails to please the participants and let them learn a bit about lighthouses too. We took a look at pictures of a number of lighthouses and talked about their purpose. The lighthouses are pretty easy to create but one of the essential pieces is getting in really short supply--glass baby food jars. We had just enough for this time though. It needs 1/2 of a paper towel tube, a jar, a cupcake liner, construction paper for stripes and windows, aluminum foil and a light to test it out. 


We wrapped the tube in light colored paper then cut stripes out of red and black and glued them onto the paper. Many also cut little windows from black paper and added those. A piece of foil folded to fit inside the side of the jar makes a great reflector and is easy to tape into place. We have cut cones for the top in the past but this time we used white cupcake liners and made great tops for the lighthouse. Last we used flashlights and battery candle lights to check out the function and found out they do light up and reflect light. Great learning project and it works for lots of ages.