Making the Perfect (Simple) Paper Plane

When looking for something to do which requires little or no preparation, I often reach for a huge stack of paper that is always in the corner of the cupboard. Paper can be made to do lots of things and this day I thought I’d show B an amazing flying plane. Only the first one I made wasn’t amazing. This led me to find out how to make a really good plane from just one piece of paper. I found a lot more than I had bargained for.

The first plane I made for B was met with a blank face and “that wasn’t very good, Mama”. It was a bit of a let down as we’d had fun folding paper together. I hadn’t told him what we were making and I thought I might get at least an “oo” from the first flight., but no. The paper plane flew about 2 metres heading steadily down to the floor.

So I did a little research and found this wonderful site called paperairplanes.co.uk with lots of different ways to make airplanes. There are many to choose from, some complicated and some simple, all with instructions in video form and step by step diagrams. They all fly a little differently. My favourite is the Rapier as it is quick and easy to make (and to remember).

Instructions (these are very basic and might only be understood if you know how to make a basic school child plane!):
1. Take a piece of paper and fold it lengthways down the middle. Open it.

Folded Piece of Paper

2. Fold the top edge over about one centimetre. Then fold it over again, and again and again, about 8 times.

Paper with One Fold at the Top

Paper with Top Fold Folded Over

3. Then take the top outside corner (with lots of folds) and fold it down to the middle. Do the same to the other side (like you do for a traditional basic plane)

Corners Folded Over

4. Then fold along the middle crease again.

Middle Crease Folded again

5. Lastly, fold the lower corners (now joined in the middle flat against each other) down to create the wings.

Wings Folded Down - The Finished Plane!

There is an instruction video for this plane if my instructions aren’t adequate, and diagrams when you scroll down. And through this link you will find more plane which will no doubt keep an older child happy for a long while.

If you have lots of time and patience, you might be interested in this complicated paper plane. I can’t vouch for its flying ability though, there are 35 steps and I didn't have time to finish it. I'll have to try again when my son is able to follow.

Testing different paper planes was a lot of fun and it gave us lots of opportunity to use words for describing the way they flew and how well they flew. We also:

• Practiced folding - great for fine motor skills
• Ran around and followed the planes - whole body co-ordination and dodging doorways and furniture!
• Experimented with the concept of motion
• Watched a simple plain piece of paper take on new dimensions and almost a personality as it zoomed through the air!

Do you have a favourite paper place design? Comment to tell me about it.

Autumn Leaf Decorations that last more than a day.

Autumn is one of my favourite times of year. I love to walk through the park as the leaves fall and the sun shines through bright seasonal colours. I often collect leaves and imagine all sort of decorations for the home. Unfortunately they crumble quickly in the central heating and are left forgotten, broken and brown on the balcony. So this year I decided to find ways of keeping the memory of autumn leaves in my home longer.

I have been playing around with wax in recent weeks and we thought it would be fun to try to coat the leaves with wax. Unsure of what the result would be, we steamed ahead with an improvised candle melter. We put white candle wax in an old jam jar, put it in a pot of hot water on the cooker and watched it melt slowly. Then we put the hot wax in a litre sized plastic bucked to do the dunking.


We carefully dipped each leaf and lay it on cardboard to dry. This is quite dangerous and needs lots of supervision.

Dipping a Leaf in Hot Candle Wax

Then we simply tied the leaves to a piece of string and hung them from a lamp. Lovely.

Even a few days later the leaves look great and aren’t falling apart. They look like they may last all year.


On another day, we spent some time looking at the different shapes of the leaves and we drew around a few different ones on coloured paper. We cut them out, folding the paper a few times to make the process quicker. Then I stuck them to string to hang by the windows. The result is a simple paper decoration to cheer the windows up on dreary days.

Paper Leaves Cheering up my WIndow

Making Fortune Tellers and Using Up Some Energy

I love paper crafts. They can be really simple, or complicated when you have the time, and can be wonderous for little kids. This one is super simple and easily fills 30 mins with fun and movement for the child. Fantastic.

My friends and I used to make fortune tellers (or chatterboxes or cootie catchers) at school all the time and somehow predicted wonderful things about the coming years. They are folded pieces of paper which can be moved in two directions. Numbers and colours provide choices and the ‘future’ is written under the hidden flap. This time, I put simple actions under the flaps and my son loved it.

This is how to make one:

Take a square piece of paper, fold it diagonally both ways and open again.

Fold the corners into the middle.

Turn it over and again fold the corners into the middle.

Turn it over again so that you are looking at squares and not triangles. Fold it across the middle. Open it. Fold it the other way across the middle. Open it.

Now, slide index finger and thumb of each hand under the squares and, using the folds you just made, pinch it together. Push index finger against index finger and thumb against thumb to make it move the other way.

I wrote numbers on the squares on top, coloured in the triangles on the other side and wrote actions under the flaps. My actions were simple things: jump five times, spin around, moo like a cow, touch your toes etc. Write things that you know your child will enjoy doing over and over.

This is how you play:

Ask your child to choose a number. Move the chatterbox that number of times. Choose a colour. Spell the colour and move the chatterbox with each letter. Choose another colour then look under that colour and do what it says.

The finished chatterbox can be packed in a bag for entertainment on the road. For a long trip you could make a few. I found a great site dedicated to chatterboxes with print outs which you just need to fold - great for a long drive. Have a look at this one for playing when flying.

Improve your children's listening skills with pieces of paper

Do you know what paper sounds like? What can you do with paper to make a noise? How much noise do you think you can make with one piece of paper? These are some of the questions you can ask to initiate exploration of paper, or you can leave them around, discovery box style, for the child to find and listen to. Either way, the preparation is pretty similar and can be adapted for children of any age ready to refine their listening skills.

Cut some differing pieces of paper to the same size. (A4 works well as it is small enough to handle and big enough to do a variety of things with.) Find ways to make a noise with them, comparing as you go. Simple. Your child will practice listening to quiet sounds and subtle differences in sound, both good for focussing better in school and becoming a good conversationalist.

We used ordinary printer paper, tissue paper, grease proof paper, tin foil (OK, I know it’s not paper, but it makes a great sound), thin packing paper and a piece of kitchen roll. Use anything you have available. My two year old looked at me oddly when I asked him what he thought paper sounded like, but was soon listening intently to the differences as we shook them. 

Are you ready to listen?

Then we listened carefully to the quiet sound made when you put thumb and fore finger on either side and rub in a circle. Holding the paper close to the ear we heard a very different sound. He was enthralled.

Flicking the paper produced lots of giggles as he saw the paper move quickly towards him as I hit it from the other side.

Next we ripped the sheets up. Some paper sounded the same as other sheets, and some very different. Then we just had loads of fun ripping it all up!

Paper Ripped Noisily!

For an almost three year old, that was enough. We learnt a lot and had lots of fun. An older child may want to do more and talk about the how and why of the different sounds. A larger variety of materials would also be interesting, for example different thicknesses of card or other materials like plastic.

Here are some things you could do:

• Rip
• Shake
• Rub
• Flick
• Draw on - with different types of pen
• Screw into a ball
• Walk on (especially on carpet)
• Have a pet walk on
• Hang on a line and throw a ball at
• Drive cars or other vehicles over

Any more ideas? I’d love to read your comments.

Most of the sounds here are very quiet, especially in a child’s world, and are a reminder that sometimes it is worth holding your tongue and paying attention to what’s going on, just so you don’t miss anything.

And we didn't waste the paper...

Add glue and coloured card

 We made an interesting picture:

Recycled Paper Art

Windmills on Clothes Pegs

Windmills are always lovely to look at. We wanted to make some of our own and tried a few different types of paper. The best ones by far are made with our own design from painting in a tub which we did a few weeks ago.

I found this page to have the simplest instructions to follow however I didn’t like to put the windmill on a straw as the pin came right through. So we experimented with different holders. We tried pencils, lolly sticks, door frames… but our favourite are clothes pegs. It makes them wonderfully mobile.

Mini Windmills on Clothes Pegs on a Plastic Cup

 

 

 

The craft was a little difficult for my nearly three year old to do well, but he enjoyed trying and loved the final thing. He liked that we used paper from an old painting activity, that we did something worthwhile with it. He marvelled at the transformation from flat piece of paper to a moving 3D shape. The clothes pegs were a great work out for his little fingers. We peg them outside in good weather and quickly bring them in if it rains.

Paper Cubes

I used to love making 3D shapes from one sheet of paper as a child. I've always like creating something which seems completely different from the original material. I had a book full of shapes to build with designs by M C Escher which entertained me for hours. So, after playing a game involving a die with colours I decided to make a cube with B. I had no idea how well the activity would turn out. It was a spur of the moment thing late in the evening as he was wide awake after a long long nap in the afternoon.

He was fascinated with the process: drawing the pattern, cutting it precisely and then gluing it in place. It was like magic as the flat, oddly-shaped pattern became a real cube! He loves numbers, but letters are the new thing right now, so I wrote a - f on the sides. It was a success. We played "Find something which starts with..." for a relatively long time. The most fun came from the fact that we had made it and before long he was asking for more. "Big one" he asked. "Make big one please". So I promised that we would search for a really big piece of paper in the morning and make the biggest die we possibly could.

I did wonder what he gained from this experience. A two year old can do little in the construction process, but the fascination was proof enough to me that it was a worth while activity.
These are my conclusions:

• we worked and talked together
• he saw how one thing can form entirely shapes
• he watched me use scissors correctly
• he saw me measure accurately to make a precise shape
• maybe his mind was thinking about other things which might be possible
• maybe he was wondering if we could make a bus in the same way

We enjoyed our evening activity and I was looking forward to building a really big cube with him. Perhaps there is a way to make a bus, with wipers and doors and all that. Maybe we can recreate Waterfall by Escher...