Rainy Day Crafts

How to Survive an Afternoon Indoors

It’s been so hot and muggy lately, with rainstorms almost every day. In between storms we managed to make it to the library where they had this incredible display of small die cast model planes, helicopters, and rockets. This display cabinet has four shelves—all four crowded with vehicles of flight! This whole collection belongs to one person, and he lets the library display it every year.

The whole time we were there the dudes kept frantically dragging me back to the display, shouting about some new plane they’d just seen that I HAD to see. It was so adorable.

So the natural thing to do when we got home and it started raining again was to make our own planes. We managed to find one last hot glue stick (we go through them so very fast), and sat down for a quick craft time.

For the jet plane you need:

3 jumbo craft sticks — 1 cut in half diagonally
1 regular size craft stick — cut in half diagonally
Hot glue
Markers (optional, you could also use paint or crayons)

The two uncut sticks are the top and bottom of the fuselage, the large cut stick is the wings, and the small cut stick is the tail. Glue the wings and the tail on as shown.

Glue the top fuselage stick on top of the wings and tail. (Always supervise children with hot tools)

TADA! The easiest jet plane ever.

For the single prop (propeller) plane you need:

4 regular size craft sticks—1 cut in half
Hot glue
Markers (again, optional)

Two of the uncut sticks are the fuselage, the last uncut stick is the wings, and the cut stick is the tail and an additional stabilizer. Glue the wings, tail, and stabilizer to the bottom of the fuselage.

Glue the last stick on top. (Again, use care with hot tools.)

You can now add “aircraft engineer” to your resume.

If you’re the type of parent, grandparent, or babysitter who believes in markers you can let the kids color their planes. I hate combining markers and children, so I only have sharpies and they are only for the adults. Except when the kids steal them.

What I love about this craft is that it’s so quick, and then the kids are occupied for hours afterwards. Right now the baby is asleep and the dudes are flying around the living room. The only sounds are the spitting they make for engine noise, and the occasional yell as someone explodes (they’re boys, everything explodes sooner or later).