Monday Made It - It's a Traffic Light!

It's time for another Monday Made It. This week I made a traffic light for the school's welcome bulletin board. Be sure and check Tara's blog 4th grade Frolics for other great "Made It's".

Saturday I went over to school to work on a couple things for the school's welcome bulletin board. This year the welcome display is going to have a racing theme. “Racing off to a great year!” I have a few more things to make, but those will have to wait till the teachers return. (I need their pictures!) I'll post a picture of the finished display as soon as it's complete. As part of the display I wanted to make a traffic light. I checked the teacher idea box – otherwise known as Pinterest – and found a few ideas. Of course I had to change it up a little. Got to use what’s one hand. My light:

 

 

 

 

To make my light I used:

3 ice cream buckets from Wal-Mart. The rectangle shape worked great.

White Christmas lights

Black construction paper

Black poster board

Small piece of red, yellow, and green tissue papers

A boat paddle

Bucket of rocks

Lots of hot glue

Duct tape –

Carpet knife and scissors

 

 Step One:

Duct tape the 3 ice cream buckets together. It doesn’t’ matter what color you use. With the carpet knife I cut hole in the back of the top bucket to feed the Christmas lights into the buckets. I also cut small holes in the bottom of the top and middle sections of the traffic light. The carpet knife sliced the plastic like butter.

 

 

Step two:

I took the black poster board and made the front and sides of the traffic light. To make it look like a traffic light, I glued tissue paper on the inside to make it look like a traffic light. I hot glued the poster board to the ice cream tubs and had the top part of my light.

*Hint* If anyone else makes one of these, don’t glue to front of the light on until you have already attached the light to the stand. I had to take it off to connect it to the boat paddle.

 

Step three:

Create a light pole! I used a boat paddle. That’s what I had. Didn’t figure the boys would use it in the next month or so. If you are going to use this for a long time, use a piece of wood or thick PVC pipe. Mine was meant to be temporary. I wrapped the paddle with black construction paper and scrapes from the bulletin board paper in the library.

 

Step four:

 I placed the stand (boat paddle) in a bucket, filled it with rocks to make it sturdy. Another mistake I made was attaching the light to the upright paddle.* Hint* I would advise attaching the traffic light to the stand before you place it in the bucket of rocks. I almost burnt a couple fingers in the hot glue. Ice cream buckets are made of very thin plastic. I could feel the hot glue melting the buckets as I attached them to the paddle. Make sure to watch the placement of the cords to the Christmas lights. You want to be able to plug them in after all this hard work. My finished traffic light!!!  I'll tape the extension cord to the back. It will only be on during open house or special occasions. Don’t want to get into trouble with the fire marshal.

 

Go check out other great Monday Made It’s on Tara’s blog! Might find something you just have to make for your library or classroom.

I need to go by school and shelf those books. That was my "read it"  stack from last week.