Make a food chain mobile

Adults version

Stuff you need

Paper, card, scissors, compasses, paints, crayons or felt-tips, string, pins.

Important notes

Younger children may need to be given pre-cut shapes and help with threading the mobiles. If children have trouble using scissors to cut the shapes out, they will probably struggle with threading the mobiles. Try again when they are a bit older.

Steps

Practise drawing the different elements of the chain on paper.
Make sure you give them a clear outline that you can cut around.

Draw the smallest food, the hazel nut, in the food chain, and use the compasses to draw a circle around it.

Draw the mouse around this circle. Surround that with a circle of its own, and draw the owl around that.

Colour your food chain in. It doesn’t matter if you go over the edges because you are going to cut it out.

Cut out all the circles, and then cut around the outlines of the nut, the mouse and the owl.

Carefully pierce a hole in the top of the hazel nut, and thread string through it.
Pierce another hole above the circle in the mouse and string the two together.
Use a pin to make a hole in the mouse where the mouse and nut are balanced, as in the drawing.
You might need to try more than one position with the pin.
When the hole is in the right place, thread string through it.

Attach the mouse to the owl in the same way as step 6 and find the balance point with a pin.
Hang up your finished mobile and watch it move in the wind.

Stay safe!

Remember that scissors and pins are sharp, so be careful.