Faith Curriculum Library: Tapestry of Faith: Creating Home: A Program on Developing a Sense of Home Grounded in Faith for Grades K-1

Activity 5: Making Windsocks

Activity time: 15 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Cardboard cylinders or empty containers for all participants
  • Construction paper, crayons or markers, glue or tape, strong string, and crepe paper ribbon

Preparation for Activity

  • Begin a few weeks ahead of the session collecting empty, cylindrical cardboard containers and cardboard rolls from paper towels. You will need one for each child. Empty boxes of oatmeal or empty cardboard tubes of potato chips will work well. Cut off the tops and bottoms from cylinders that have them.

Description of Activity

Children will create a windsock to help them remember John Murray. He would not have preached at Thomas Potter's church, and may not have become one of our country's first Universalist ministers, if the wind had been blowing the day he was to leave on the Hand In Hand.

Tell children they will each make a windsock to help them remember the story and to honor the wind.

Give each child:

  • A cardboard cylinder
  • Construction paper to cover the cylinder
  • Crayons and markers to decorate the paper
  • Crepe paper ribbon
  • A piece of strong string

Tell children they may begin decorating their paper with a picture of their favorite part from the John Murray story. You may suggest the ship on which he came from England (the Hand In Hand), or the ship's crew receiving the food from Tom.

Allow five minutes for drawing. Visit each child individually. You may need to help children cut the paper to fit around their cylinders. It will be easier for them to decorate the paper before gluing. However, try to cut each child's construction paper to the correct size quickly, to prevent children investing time in a drawing that won't fully show when wrapped around the cardboard cylinder.

Glue the paper to the container. Then glue some strips of crepe paper to the bottom. Punch four holes in the top of the container, lace a string knotted at one end through each hole and tie the four ends together. Children can take them home and place them outside and watch the wind blowing their windsock all around.