Toilet Paper Tube Snake [Craft & Write]

My son is totally into LEGO Ninjago lately and since snakes are an arch enemy of the four ninjas, I knew this activity would be a hit. Although my son learned some about snakes when we made our reptile bookmarks, this activity taught us even more about these slithery animals.

To start we read two great books. My son read Snakes and I read through many of the questions in What’s Inside a Rattlesnake’s Rattle. Both taught us loads about snakes! Did you know that some snakes don’t hatch from eggs and that the more a snake eats, the more often it sheds its skin? Cool!

When we were done reading, I got out some paint, empty toilet paper tubes I’d been saving, a piece of red craft foam, and some brads. It was time to make our own slithering snake!

First, my son cut V shapes on each end of the tubes, except for on one tube, which we used as the tail. Then, my son painted the tubes.

He cut out a forked tongue shape from craft foam and we stapled it one of the tubes and glued on two googly eyes.

Then, my son used a paper punch to make two holes in the tops of each tube (my son didn’t paint the bottom of the tubes). Now we layered the holes one on top of the other, connecting the tubes together on top one at a time with brads. Lastly, we connected the tail (the one tube that still had a blunt end).

Isn’t my son’s snake “SSSSSSssssss”super?

When he was done, I gave him some snake-themed writing paper and asked him to write three sentences about his snake. (Download the snake paper I made here.)

I got the idea for this wonderful craft from Odds ‘N’ Ends Art and adapted the directions to use toilet paper tubes.