I promised you a super simple activity and, my friend, this is one. Simple Saturday Super Simple Pinwheels are a blast to make. Let me show you how.
Remember the list of pinwheelie stuff you need to gather? The sheet of copier paper, a sharpened pencil with a meaty eraser tip, a handful of washable markers (optional), a straight pin, a small plastic lid, a ruler, scissors, and tape? If so, you're ready to spin. Let's do it.
Measure and cut an eight inch square of copier paper. Using the straight edge of the ruler, draw a line from one alternating point of the square to another. When finished, you would have drawn a big X on the pinwheel paper.
Next, lay the small plastic lid over the center point of the lines. Trace around the edges of the lid. This circular line is pretty important to your pinwheel success as it identifies the 'stop cutting here' mark. Go passed it and it's pinwheel doomsday, my friend.
At this point, should you desire to get all colorful and creative, go for it. Jazz up your pinwheel to your little heart's content. I resisted the urge because I thought the instructional pictures might be more easily understood if I didn't. Besides that, I was under a little bit of time crunch to get this post out. TMI? Probably.
After you colorfully express yourself, it is time to put this puppy together. Moving from the square's outer points cut on the diagonal line toward the circular stop-cutting-here-warning line.
Here comes the only tricky part of the project. Once you've made your cuts, being careful not to make a crease in the paper, fold alternate triangular tips onto the the circle's center point. Go ahead and use a tiny bit of tape to hold the tips in place.
Note: Use tape sparingly because we want to keep the pinwheel as light as possible. It spins better that way. Trust me. Have I ever steered you wrong? On second thought, maybe you better not answer that question.
Okay, with straight pin and meaty pencil eraser in hand, stick the pin through the pinwheel center point. Now see the sharp pointy part of the pin sticking out in the back? Go ahead and poke that baby all the way through the eraser. To assure that you won't get pricked while having that good ol' pinwheelin' fun bend the pin so that is flush against the metal eraser rim and cover it with a piece of tape.
And there you have it! A Simple Saturday Super Simple Pinwheel! To make it spin you can either stand in a breeze, position yourself in front of an air conditioner vent, or do just what John's doing here and blow into the pinwheel's curved folds. He's such a big kid, isn't he? He's having so much fun he can barely hold back a smile. See that?
But wait...
What in the world is that dark thing growing out of the top of his head? A unicorn's horn? An antler?
Good thing the pinwheel's not secured to that mysterious knob or he just might take off in flight!