Your little ones will love making this festive Patriotic Pinwheel this 4th of July, made from a single square of heavy paper or cardstock, painted or colored in any way they choose. (We're celebrating freedom here, after all ...) It's a surprisingly easy-to-make craft—perfect for parades and parties and, later, strapping onto the handlebars of a bicycle!

Materials

• colored construction paper or lightweight cardstock
• crayons or paint
• scissors

• straight pins (we use the kind with colorful plastic pin heads)
• new unsharpened pencils with good erasers
• tape

Instructions

1.
For each pinwheel, cut an 8-inch square of paper or cardstock.

2.
Decorate the paper's front and back with colorful designs in crayon or paint. Elaborate drawings maybe cut or obscured during assembly, so encourage little ones to stick with big blocks or patterns of color, instead.

3.
Cut a 1½-inch square from the cardstock to make your washer.

4.
Decorate your washer (we decorated ours like a flag).

5.
Attach a tape loop to the back of the decorative washer and set aside.
6.
Once your 8 inch square is decorated, gently fold the square on each diagonal to mark seams for cutting and to find the center of the square. Try not to make sharp creases; the folds are just a visual guide.

7.
Using your scissors (Mom), cut in on each fold line about three-quarters of the way from the corner toward the center. Leave the last inch or so of each fold—closest to the center—uncut.
8.
Keep your pin and pencil handy. Now, fold every other tip of the pinwheel toward the center, overlapping them. Pinch them between your fingers while you attach the decorative washer using the tape loop on the back.

9.
Push the pin through the washer, the center of the pinwheel and into the eraser on the back. Stop when the pin feels solid resistance—you've struck wood. Pushing too far will bend the pin.

Tips

• We stick our Patriotic Pinwheel pin directly into the end of the pencil eraser because it's so foolproof and secure. It's not only fun to run with, it's also ready to strap onto bicycle handlebars with twist ties or rubber bands. (You won't believe how fast they'll spin!) If you'd like the pencil to be parallel to the pinwheel, though, simply bend the pin gently once it's attached.