Moveable Cardboard Snake Craft

Let the snake crafts continue!  Yesterday I shared this easy twisty snake sculpture.  Today I wanted to show how we made this cardboard toilet roll snake... that actually moves!

Moveable Toilet Roll Snake!

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(By the way, according to Chuck this snake is very poisonous.  I can vouch for that.  It's bitten me and I've "died" quite a few times!)

When thinking up this craft, I wasn't sure exactly how to make the snake move.   So I fiddled around with the toilet paper rolls.  Still no luck.  Then, Chuck and I watched a couple of snake slithering videos on YouTube.  

Bingo!  The creative juices started flowing and after a couple more misses, I came up with this design for each segmented part:

Now it's not perfect, but the snake will look like it's moving if you swing it around.  The sides are curved to allow each piece to move.  The holes on top allow paper fasteners to connect the body together.

Here's what the pieces look like painted:

(Chuck and I worked together. He painted some pieces and I painted others.)

We also taped dimes inside each piece to properly weight the snake down (otherwise the snake rolls onto its back where the paper fasteners are.)

Here's what the segments look like attached to one another:

And here's what the snake looks like from the top:

And then we just taped in some fangs!

Ssss!  Ahhh!

Hope you have fun making a cardboard snake of your very own!  This was a great art, science, and engineering activity too.  We painted, talked about how snakes moved, and also noticed how the coins inside each segment properly weighed the snake down.

And if you liked this craft, you can always find more toilet roll crafts on the blog too!

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Happy making, friends!