Rocky Railway VBS: Yarn Mountain Craft

Try this 3D craft with your elementary and youth students. What a great reminder that God is bigger than any mountain (or valley) we face!

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As usual, my 3 year old was my assistant/tester for this yarn mountain craft. Even with us working one-on-one, she struggled with this craft. If you’re looking for a preschool-appropriate activity, see the modification at the end of the post.

Supplies:

White cardstock paper
Yarn
School glue
Black markers
Scissors
Foam paint brushes
Disposable bowls
Baby wipes
Mountain template

Instructions:

PREP: Cut string into various length strips (3″-12″). The longer strips are more difficult to glue, so the smaller you make the strips the easier it’ll be. I think it looks cooler with longer pieces.

PREP: Print 1 mountain template per student on cardstock paper (the glue and yarn add a good bit of weight, so you definitely don’t want to use regular paper).

Put school glue in disposable bowls (1-2 bowls per crew).

Give each student a mountain scene. Have them write a message at the top of the paper. I wrote “God is bigger than my mountains and valleys!”. You could also write the day’s bible verse. Make sure they also put their name on the paper.

Instruct students to “paint” the large mountain with glue using a foam paint brush – including the gray line. (I started with just squirting glue on the paper, then finally started painting it on… which worked much better.)

Let kiddos pick a piece of yarn and lay it along the gray line. If the strip of yarn is longer than the gray line, turn the yarn and go back up along the mountain – see photo below.

(Kids’ hands will get very glue-y… hence, the baby wipes. If you have sensory-sensitive kiddos, they can use the foam brush to push the yarn down onto the glue.)

Repeat this process, filling the mountain with yarn from the peak of the mountain to the bottom of the paper. Once the big mountain is finished, kids can fill in the two small mountains and the sunshine.

This was right after we finished the mountains – you can tell the glue is still very wet and a little messy.

Let the yarn mountain crafts dry overnight before sending them home with kiddos or hanging them up as decor.

Left mountain: 2″ strips (younger kids modification); Middle mountain: mountain made with 9-12″ strips of yarn; Right mountain: 3 year old’s interpretation of the craft.

PRESCHOOL/YOUNG ELEMENTARY MODIFICATION: The long strips look neat, but they’re more difficult to glue down nicely (see the small mountain on the right where my preschooler tried by herself). The craft is much easier with small pieces of yarn. The small mountain on the left was completed only using small (~2″) pieces. It was much faster and easier. If you’d like to do this craft with preschoolers, I’d definitely advise using 2″ strips of yarn and having them all pre-cut.

Blooper: This is what happens when you walk away from a preschooler doing this yarn mountain craft and let her keep working alone. 🙂

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