Make your own telescope

Telescopes are necessary for any pirate who wants to capture a merchant vessel loaded with gold. But they can also be fun for spying on your parents or siblings, or spotting squirrels in the yards. The National Geographic has an amazing tutorial to make a real telescope with some old reading glasses and cardboard tubes. You can find it by having an adult help you visit kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/nature/make-a-telescope. But for this telescope, we kept it simple.

How to make a telescope

1. Gather your supplies. You will need a paper towel tube, rubber bands (or tape), a heavy piece of cardstock and some stickers for decorating. You can use the rubber bands from your newspaper!

2. Wrap the cardstock around the paper towel tube and secure with tape or your rubber bands. Make sure it slides easily up and down, so you have a real telescope.

3. Now it's time to decorate! You can wrap it with ribbons, stickers or your own blimey design.