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How to Make a Homemade Jacob's Ladder

A Jacob's ladder is an old fashioned children's toy that has been around for many years. Using materials that you can find in your home, it's easy to create a Jacob's ladder in just a few minutes. Feel free to substitute the wood blocks with any other small and light square-shaped material. When assembled, you can grasp a block in the ladder and pull it upward to watch the rest of the blocks fall as if they were going down a ladder.

Things You'll Need

Clear scotch tape
Scissors
Ruler
Two sheets of construction paper
Six small blocks of wood, equally sized

Instructions

- 1
  Cut fifteen strips of construction paper that are approximately 1/4 inch in width and have a length that is equal to two of the wood blocks when laid end-to-end.
- 2
  Place a block of wood on a table and adhere three strips of paper to it. Place two on the left-hand side, positioned with one along the top border and one along the bottom border. Place the third on the right-hand side, positioned at the center.
- 3
  Repeat Step 2 until you have prepared a total of five blocks of wood with the strips of construction paper. One wood block will contain no strips of construction paper.
- 4
  Place one of the wood blocks face down on your table so that the strips of paper are laying against the table's surface, then fold the paper over the top of the wood block.
- 5
  Place one of the wood blocks with paper on top of the block you prepared in Step 4, then fold the paper from the block underneath it and tape it to the top block's surface. Continue to stack the blocks of wood on top of one another, folding and taping the paper from the block underneath each until you have stacked all of the blocks on top of one another.
- 6
  Place the wood block with no tape on top of the stack and fold the paper strips from the block underneath on top of the wood block to complete the assembly.

Kids Games