DIY Hot Air Balloon Toy

Making your own hot air balloon toy is a fun and easy activity. Kids can easily create their own tissue balloon and will find both construction of the hot air balloon toy and playing with the tissue hot air balloon to be a lot of fun. This can also be used as a science project to help kids understand the properties of warm and cool air. Your child could create a tissue hot air balloon and use a hair dryer to make it "fly" for a science fair project. Follow these easy steps to create your own hot air balloon toy.

1. You will need four large sheets of tissue paper to create the tissue balloon. Fold each sheet of tissue paper in half and use a pencil or pen to draw a "c" shape with the ends of the "c" on the folded edge of the tissue paper. This is the outline for one panel of your tissue hot air balloon. After you've created this outline, use a scissors to cut out the first hot air balloon toy panel.

2. After outlining and cutting out the hot air balloon toy panel, you can trace and mark out each new tissue balloon panel for your tissue hot air balloon. As you cut each tissue balloon panel out of the folded tissue paper, be sure to trim each panel and fit it with the others-each panel needs to be the exact same size as the other tissue balloon panels.

3. Take the first tissue balloon panel and unfold it. Spread glue along the edge of one half of the tissue balloon panel. Stick the second balloon panel over the first one and press down over the glue. Repeat this process with each tissue hot air balloon panel until they are all joined into the top part of a hot air balloon toy.

4. Now it is time to create a tissue balloon basket. The balloon basket can be made with anything small and light, such as modeling clay or a small cardboard box. I like to use a piece of folded oak tag to create my tissue hot air balloon basket. You can even use modeling clay to create passengers to put in the tissue balloon basket. Once you're finished making the balloon basket, you need to attach it to the hot air balloon toy You can use a piece of thread for each corner of the balloon basket and attach the other end of the threads to the open end of the tissue hot air balloon.

5. When you're finished building your hot air balloon toy you make it fly! Use a hair dryer to blow up the hot air balloon toy and watch it take flight.

6. After creating your first tissue balloon, you can experiment with sizes of tissue paper and the size and weight of the balloon basket to see if you can make a hot air balloon toy that will fly even higher.