Make a Changing Faces Man

Gresham and I made this “changing faces” man yesterday! We got the idea from this post at A Little Learning for Two. Check out her post – her dolls are much cuter!

To make one, you need:

• Two sizes of cardboard tubes – one needs to be able to fit inside the other
• Paper
• Markers, paint, or colored pencils – we used colored pencils (least mess!)
• Scissors
• Strong glue – we used Tacky Glue
• A sheet of cardboard – we used the side of a cereal box

We used a paper towel roll for our tubes. In order to make one fit inside the other, I cut it apart, rolled it a little tighter, and taped it shut again.

The inside tube needs a cardboard base. We cut a circle from our cereal box and glued it to the bottom of the tube with Tacky Glue.

To decorate the outside tube, I covered it with paper and cut a hole for the face. Gresham wanted a paleontologist (to go with all his dino toys), so I drew a figure for him, and he colored it in.

To decorate the inside tube, I cut out paper faces and gave each of them different expressions – happy, surprised, silly, and mad. I taped them on and quickly realized that they needed to be down really flat in order to spin the tube and change the faces. So I covered all four faces with a large piece of packing tape. This created a smooth surface, and our man turns very easily!

To change the face on your man, simply turn the base!

This project requires a lot of help on the parents’ part, but the end result is a lot of fun! Gresham had a great time playing with his man! It’s fun to make homemade toys!