Toilet Paper Roll Plane & Picture Book

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My kids believe that you can make ANYTHING out of a Toilet Paper Roll! Well with an abundance of Easy Toilet Paper Roll crafts on our site, I guess who can blame them.

Our favourite activity when they were little, was to read a book and make a craft to go with it. So when ready Olive Jeffer’s The Way Back Home, we simple had to make a Toilet Paper Roll Plane & Ufo set!

Toilet Paper Roll Plane
First shared in March 2010

The Book & Craft Process

Finally, our first stART project inspired by Playing By the Book and  A Mommy’s Adventures – who have made some great booky projects! Do take a look, they are fab. Reading and crafting like this together is a wonderful way to bring a story to life and really get kids into story telling and learning.

The Book we chose – The Way Back Home

We decided to “honour” Oliver Jeffers with our first craft project and we picked “The Way Back Home”. It is a lovely quirky book featuring the impossible made possible! Planes in cupboards, martians and climbing to the moon. Lovely drawings. Lovely book.

The Way back home book cover

Red Ted likes to leaf through his books by himself, but we also read them together. Sometimes I just “tell him” the story as we go along (as I speak German to him), so we talk about the pictures more that way.

Materials needed for the Toilet Paper Roll Plane & Alien Ship

  • Loo Roll,
  • Cardboard (recycled box),
  • Toothpicks
  • Pou could also use paper plates,
  • A clear plastic tub (e.g. yoghurt pot)
  • Scissors,
  • Masking Tape,
  • Paint & prushes,
  • Newspaper.
Materials needed

How to make your Toilet Paper Roll Plane & Alien Ship

Toilet Paper Roll Plane

The Toilet Paper Roll Plane

I made the models, as Red Ted is still a little small, but let him paint.

For the plane I used some loo roll, cardboard and some newspaper at the front scrunched up.

I secured it with masking tape, as you can paint over it. The wings are just slotted into holes I cut. I got the idea from a friend’s father who made a fabulous plane out of a kitchen towel roll for his son! 

Easy flying saucer craft

The UFO or flying saucer

For the UFO (as we call it in German), I used an empty baby food pot (erm, I don’t buy baby food, this was left over from a visitor) and two circles of cardboard – Paper Plates would work well too! We have made a paper plate flying saucer here that you may enjoy!

I slot the pot through a hole in one  circle and stick the other circle underneath.

I did pad it out with some scrunched up newspaper, to give it some body. I covered it in masking tape, as Red Ted is sure to cover it in paint.

You can remove it afterwards!

Some of our process photos

Red Ted gets stuck: Red Ted gets to paint! We almost had a tantrum as Red Ted couldn’t wait to start on the UFO, but I hadn’t made it yet. The joys of crafting with a preschooler! Definitely a little more challenging, but the rewards always worth it.

Maybe Green is his favourite colour!!! I think just as much paint went all over the newspaper and Red Ted’s hands as it did on the plane and UFO. But surely, that is half the fun?!?

We also like washing up! It is great to get the kids involved in the tidying up! And to be honest, mostly the love it too. So as they enjoy the process, why not get a little help from them too!

More Toilet Roll Paper Crafts here:

Easy Toilet Paper Roll Crafts