Jonah and the whale is a story almost 3000 years old, but it hasn’t lost its fascination. For a children’s church project, I designed this whale and Jonah, who fits into the whale’s maw:

This proejct is not difficult to build. Here are brief instructions on how to do it: All flaps and accompanying opposite sides are numbered. Start glueing them in the order in which they are numbered.

Jonah is a very basic cubic shape:

For the whale, you have to cut out the two bigger parts. The part containing the whale’s maw has a square which you should cut out – this creates a slot for Jonah to fit in.

Now start with the part which contains the fin tail. Glue on flaps no. 8 to 11. This creates the upper part of the maw.

Then take the other part and glue together no. 12 and 13. This forms the ‘chin’. Next, glue together no. 14 to 17, which creates an ‘L’-shaped form:

Now you should have two parts looking like this:

The only thing left is to combine them. Put the upper part onto the lower one and glue on flaps 19 and 20. No. 21 will be glued to the tail from below. You should carefully curl up tail fin. Done:

Here is the PDF template:

Jonah_and_the_whale

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