Make your own pinwheel just in time for your local Memorial Day parade! In just a few easy steps, you and your children can have an enjoyable time creating this spinning decoration. In order to add some variety, you may use multicolored paper or have your children draw whatever they like on their paper before turning it into a pinwheel. Paper with red or white on one side and blue on the other would be a perfect choice for a patriotic pinwheel. Here’s how to get started:
First of all, gather your supplies. You’ll need:
- Pins. They must be at least an inch in length and have a decently large head.
- Square sheets of paper. Origami paper works wonderfully, but any old paper cut into squares will work just fine.
- Beads. You will need plastic beads whose hole is smaller than the head of your pin so that they will not come off.
- Sticks. Any type of stick will do, as long as you are able to stick a pin through it without too much difficulty. If you use a pencil, you can stick the pin through the eraser quite easily.
- Fold the paper. You will need to fold each paper exactly in half into the shape of a triangle. Then, unfold the paper, and fold it into a triangle again. This time, you will need to take the two edges that made up the first triangle when folded and bring those together and fold. This way, when you unfold the paper again, you should see an “X” mark throughout the square from the folds.
- Make pencil marks. On each fold line, make a mark with a pencil or other light writing utensil about 2/3 of the way in, towards the center. When finished with this step, if you were to connect the four marks you made, you should be able to see a square about 1/3 the size of your original paper.
