This is an easy craft that takes only a minimal amount of preparation/shopping. Unless you’re like us and discover you don’t have any soft drink bottles. And since the only
person who drinks soft drink in this house is David, Aisha pestered him
for a week to finish up his “yucky water” (tonic water) so we could make
our submarines.

You'll need to compile a shopping list.

The full list of materials is as follows:

• - cellophane, cut into strips
• - a bendy straw or bit of plastic piping (I used an old plastic clothes hanger, broken into the right size)
• - string or wool
• - glitter
• - stickers
• - plastic knives
• - a plastic bottle
• - a plastic or paper cup
• - clear tape for fixing
• - coloured tape for decoration.

The only preparation needed is to strip the labels from the plastic bottles and to cut the cellophane into strips. I used wrapping paper instead of cellophane which worked, but
the paper turned soggy in the bottle (because water is added later), so
definitely I should have looked more carefully before I purchased my
roll! (I was more intent on choosing a colour than double-checking what I
was actually buying…)

Assemble your materials.

Stuff strips of the cellophane into the bottles.

Add a generous quantity of glitter.

A funnel would have been helpful in getting more glitter inside the bottle rather than outside. (Also, keep the glitter away from any 2yos who are hanging
around.)

Take your plastic or paper cup, and cut semi-circles from the lip. This allows the cup to be taped onto the bottle more securely. Don’t worry too much about getting the curves perfect — a rushed job
works fine.

After you've cut semicircles in the lip of the cup, tape it onto the bottle to make the turret.

Wind yellow string around the turret.

Tape the ends of the string onto the turret to hold it in place. Depending on how much string/wool you want to use, you could also wrap the string around the length of the bottle
to give it more colour.

Tape the ends of two plastic knives onto the back of the submarine to form the propeller.

I think it was at this point that Brioni realised what she was making and asked for the Yellow Submarine song to be put on. We like to
listen to this
version by Canadian singer Raffi Cavoukian.

A straw or curved bit of piping becomes the periscope.

By this point, the 2yo has lost interest in the craft and is using her [de-turreted] submarine as a balancing beam.

Decorate your sub with stripes of yellow tape and fish stickers.

Add water to the submarine to make the glitter slosh around and also to make it submersible in the bathtub.

Two submarines ready to browse the deep ocean.

We followed this activity by reading a book on submarines and watching some real and remote-controlled submarines on Youtube. The girls took their subs with
them into the bath and they’ve been playing with them inside and out.
So far, they’ve lasted a couple days. Good value for a home-made craft!