It's a do-it-yourself job to make with childrens on a tedious afternoon.
What you need
- A wood stick of about 40 cm or 16 inches : Tell the kids to bring you a hazelnut tree branch of about one finger diameter.
- A piece of supple plastic for feathers : Use an old liquid laundry soap plastic jar.
- Some iron wire : To fix feathers.
- Some string : About 30 cm or 10 inches bigger than the wood stick size.
How to ?
| Sharpen one extremity of the wood stick (could be made by kids). Cut straight the other extremity, using a saw. |  |
| Splint his extremity in four on about 6 cm or 3 inches. |  |
| With scissors cut plastic to get 2 rectangles of 10x5 cm or 4x2 inches (about). Make a slash in the center of the two plastic rectangles, and fit together to make feathers. |  |
| Put feathers in the bottom arrow and fix it with some iron wire (in red on the schema). |  |
| You should have something look like that. |  |
| Possibly cut again feathers to get beveld ones, more esthetic. |  |
| Make the nick about two cm or one inch from feathers (in blue on the schema). Then prepare the string by making a simple knot on its extremity. |  |
| You should have something look like that. |  |
| The arrow is over, to test it just throw it high, if it plant in earth, it's ok... Otherwise it's maybe too heavy (wood too big, or too large in diameter, you should reduce), or feathers too small, you can enlarge it. |  |
Throwing
| String is rolled, with its knot, around the nick. |  |
| String is tight along the arrow. |  |
| The remaining string is rolled around hand launcher. |  |
| And the all is hold by the arrow extremity. |  |
| And then throwed away... |  |
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Miscellanous
Be careful, arrow can be throwed far, so take care with all around and teach the kids security rules: demonstration, never toward humans or animals, etc...).You can make a target, by putting in the garden or field an old bike tyre, the goal is to plant the arrow in.
