Back to Schedule

Project challenge:

pop-up joke card

Suggested Ages: 3rd – 5th Grades

What do you call an enlightened optometrist? A visionary!—Share your favorite corny jokes with surprising pop-up cards. All you’ll need is some paper, tape, rubber bands and your visionary powers to create one-of-a-kind cards that really pop.

Engaging Design-It-Yourself projects to inspire young innovators

This is no ordinary DIY project for kids: It’s a step toward becoming an innovator.

 

Every Galileo Design-It-Yourself Challenge teaches the same techniques and mindsets that professional designers an engineers, artists and chefs use in their work. With skills like these, we believe you can change the world.

Get Involved—For Grown Ups

Materials list:

Help your child find these materials or a close substitute: 

 

  • Paper (cardstock is ideal)
  • Tape
  • Scissors
  • Thin rubber band
  • Ruler
  • Coloring tools
  • Pencil

 

Activity Steps:

Refer to these steps to keep your young innovator on track as they create:

 

    1. Choose a joke. (“Dad jokes” on Youtube provides many terrible/great jokes.)
    2. Make the basic card by folding a piece of paper in half.
    3. Then make the pop-up mechanism, that suits your joke and your style. Choose either the v-fold or spring loaded hinge. (See video for details.)
    4. Test the pop-up mechanism to confirm it works.
    5. Be visionary by taking the time to imagine multiple ways to deliver your joke’s punch line with a surprising paper pop up.
    6. Choose an element(s) to add onto the pop-up mechanism.
    7. Make the elements from paper.
    8. Re-test the pop-up.
    9. Redesign if the pop-up is not working. (Expect to redesign!)
    10. Add a theme element to the front of the card.
    11. Share your card with a friend or family member!

 

Guiding Questions:

If your child is stuck, try asking these questions to help them keep on innovating: 

 

  • Tell me about your pop-up mechanism. What’s one way you could change the pop-up to make it work better?
  • What is the joke you’ve chosen? What could pop-up in the card to help deliver the punch line?

 

More Ideas:

Every project presents opportunities to add your own twists or extensions. Here are some ideas to get you started: 

 

  • Embellish your pop-up card with extra flare like glitter, yarn or other craft decorations.
  • Consider adding a “pop-out.” Place something in the card that the spring loaded hinge might throw on opening.
  • Step it Up! Use both pop-up techniques in one card. Or make a multi-page, pop-up joke book.

 

Wrap Up Questions:

Lock in the learning by asking your child these questions about their project and how they practiced the featured Innovator’s Mindset element: 

 

  • How did your idea change from when you first looked up the joke to when the card was finished? When did you feel like you were being visionary?
  • How did being visionary (taking time to imagine multiple ways a joke could be delivered with a popup car) affect the card you made?
  • If you made another card, what would you want to try next?

SHARE!

Great learning can come from sharing successes and failures—to solidify your own experience as an innovator and to inspire others.

SHARE WITH galileo

Take a picture or video of your child’s card and share it with the Camp Galileo Anywhere Facebook Community.

Share with family and friends

Your innovation doesn’t stop with you. Inspire someone else by sharing your project challenge—maybe they’ll try it themselves or maybe your project will give them a new idea.

  • Who: someone in your house, a family member, a friend
  • How: in person, on the phone, online
  • When: anytime, starting now!