Let Handy Dan and Junkbot take you on a magical adventure with a fire-breathing dragon you can make yourself out of materials Dan found in his Amazing Junkyard of Wonderful Stuff and that you can probably find at home.
See how to make your own fire breathing dragon! Wow!
Step 1: Gather your supplies
You only need to find a few common items to make your dragon!
- 2-3 sheets of tissue paper, red, orange & yellow
- 3 cotton balls, two white, one painted green
- 1 toilet paper tube
- Green paint (or whatever color you want your dragon to be)
- Black Marker
- Glue stick
- Scissors
Step 2: Paint the tube and one cotton ball
Paint your toilet paper roll and one of the cotton balls. Spread it on thin and let it dry for an hour.
We recommend green, but you can paint it any color you wish to make your dragon! Just make sure to paint the toilet paper tube and the cotton ball the same color. The tube is going to represent the dragon's head!
Step 3: Make the "fire"
While the dragon's body tube dries, let's make the dragon fire!
Cut slits in all of the pieces of tissue paper, leaving an inch or so intact at the bottom. Use different firey colors like red, orange and yellow! Make the "fire" by gluing the cut tissue paper sheets together.
Spread glue across the bottom of the tissue paper. Place that piece on top of the other and press down.
Step 4: Make the dragon's nose
Now that your painted cotton ball is dry, go ahead and use your scissors and cut it in half.
Then, glue the nose pieces - the dragon's nostrils - on the tube.
Put glue in two spots near the edge of the toilet paper tube about a half inch away from one another.
Separately, press and hold down each half of the painted cotton ball onto the glue spot until each sticks.
Step 5: Make the eyes
Use a marker to draw large dots on the cotton balls. These will be the dragon's eyeballs.
Affix the cotton ball eyes onto the toilet paper roll.
Put glue in two spots on the opposite edge of the toilet paper tube from the nose. Put two dabs of glue, about an inch away from one another. Separately, press each half of the cotton ball eyes onto the toilet paper tube. Make sure the black dots are facing the nose or your dragon sure will look silly.
Step 6: Attach the fire
We're almost there! Spread glue across the bottom of the tissue paper you glued together in Step 3. Roll up the tissue paper, gluing it to itself.
Glue the tissue paper "fire" to the inside of the toilet paper roll.
Spread the glue stick in the inside rim of the toilet paper tube on the end where you placed the "nose". You can pretend you're putting chap stick on the dragon's mouth!
Finally, attach the tissue paper fire to the inside of the dragon's mouth. Make sure the glue sticks to the tissue paper firmly, because in the next step we're going to...
Step 7: Breathe fire!!
Blow through the "eyes" end of the toilet paper tube to make your dragon breathe fire!
For more fun, ask your parents' permission to use the hairdryer on the "cool" setting so you can make your fire breathing dragon even better!
Check back again for more do-it-yourself projects from Handy Dan the Junkyard Man and Mobile Ed Productions!
If you like DIY experiments like these, you should see the kinds of spectacular demonstrations we bring to schools with our live school assembly presentations. Take a look at STEAM Museum, The Magic of Science, Physics is Fun, Forces and Motion and Crime Scene Science, each full of interactive demonstrations that kids love.
