How to make a Pringles Can Star Viewer

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My oldest daughter’s science class, at co-op, is working through the book Considering God’s Creation.  One of the assignments in the books is to make a star viewer using a flashlight, a cereal box, and their own prints of stars.  I didn’t care for that and since we were not exactly sure what the teacher wanted, I decided to make the Pringles Can Star Viewer.   I had made a few before for my son and we loved them.  Here is what we did.

First copy Donna Young’s instructions for making the Pringles Can Star Viewer.  You will need a Pringles can.  Go ahead and buy one, then eat all the contents while driving.  Eating Pringles while driving, cuts down on the calories.  It really does!   When you do buy your chips, buy the plain kind.  If you don’t later on, you will wonder why the stars smell like onions.  We learned the hard way.  LOL    A good wiping out of the can helps though.    You will also need wide mouth mason jar lid seals.  All of this is in the instructions you just printed.  🙂

Next, have the handy husband drill a small viewing hole in the bottom of the can.  The Pringles are now gone, so it doesn’t matter if you put a hole in the can. 

 

Donna has some lovely constellations sheets or blank sheets to make your own.  The links are on the instruction page linked above.  Since we are using Considering God’s Creation, dd#1 used their  constellation print outs.    She taped the print onto the lid.  This is to keep it in place.

Once that is done, she used a nail and a big hammer to nail holes where the stars are suppose to be.  She did this for all the constellations she wanted to make slides for.

Next she decorated the Pringles can.  All she did was cut construction paper in her favorite color to the size of the Pringles can.  Then glued that on.

Since you can’t really have a plain looking star viewer, decorate the outside with nice stickers.  Dd#1 used some glow in the dark star stickers for her viewer.  Pay no attention to the dirty floor.  It doesn’t have anything to do with the viewer. 🙂

Now that the viewer is complete, simply hold the “star slide”  up to the open end of the viewer

and enjoy the view.

Thank you Donna for this great science craft.  It has been one of our favorites.  When my son was using this, we viewed several constellations slides for a few days, then went outside one night to see if we could find them and we did.    🙂