Are you looking for a sweet way to start your summer? These watermelon pinwheels are the perfect way to kick off the warm months. They look so real that you might have trouble convincing your little one they’re actually paper!
What You’ll Need:
- Green and red construction paper (1 piece of each color)
- Glue stick
- Single hole punch
- Black marker
- Green marker
- Split pin / paper fastener (1)
- Jumbo drinking straw (1)
NOTE: Video instructions are included!
- Use the glue stick to glue your red and green pieces of construction paper together. This will give you one sheet that is red on one side and green on the other.
- After the glue has dried, cut the construction paper into a perfect square. You can do this by folding one corner of the paper up until the bottom of the paper is in line with the top of the paper, making a triangle. Remove the excess paper.
- Keeping the square folded in half as a triangle, start at the triangles point and cut two thirds of the way to the top of the paper.
- Unfold the paper. Then refold into a triangle again, using the opposite corners of the paper. Again, starting at the tip of the triangle, cut two thirds of the way to the top (repeating step 3). Unfold the paper again. Your square will have cuts on each of the four corners.
- Holding the square with one triangle point facing up, use your hole punch to make a hole at the top of the paper on the left side of the cut (about ½ an inch from the end). Rotate paper and repeat on the three remaining sides. The holes will be used to secure the pinwheels sails further along in the instructions.
- On the red side of the construction paper, draw watermelon seeds using your black marker.
- On the green side of the construction paper, use your green marker to draw lines of green that start at the hole punch and move down the paper. See video for illustration. This will represent the darker green rind of the watermelon.
- Using the tip of the scissors, make a small hold in the middle of your square (a smaller hole than the hole punch would make). This will be used for the split pin (or fastener) to go through.
- Using the hole punch to make a hold at the end of your straw, puncturing through both sides of the straw.
- With the red side of the construction paper facing up, start with one side and grab hold of the hole at the tip of triangle. Gently fold down, exposing the green side of the paper. Place the split pin (or fastener) through the hole. Grab the next hole on the left, gently fold down and place the split pin (or fastener) through that hole. Repeat with the last two sides until the split pin (or fastener) is through each of the four holes. Push the split pin (or fastener) through the hold in the middle of the construction paper made by your scissors.
- As the last step, work the split pin (or fastener) through the jumbo straw. Fold the flaps of the split pin (or fastener) down so it secures the pinwheel to the straw.
This project was inspired by an activity here.