Start folding, bring one of the corners to the center of the paper.
Peacocks are insanely fun because of their wonderful feather tail. Make one with blue origami paper and paper strips or print our fun design.
Oink, oink! Transform a sheet of pink origami paper into a cute fortune teller puppet!
However you may call them, we can agree they are pretty fun – follow the step by step tutorial and make your own. But why stop there? Transform your cootie catcher into a puppet (we have tons of printable templates waiting for you as well as instructions on how to decorate when folding with origami paper.
Forest Animal Cootie Catchers
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Start folding. First fold the piece of origami paper in half to get a long rectangle. Make the fold crisp. Unfold.
Tip: You can also make diagonal folds – it will make the last step easier. We usually skip this as it makes the cootie catcher puppets look cooler.
(5) An earthquake remodels your house while you sleep… don’t jump out of bed!
Step 3: If you’ve chosen the black and white version, time to colour it in using felt pens or crayons.
Step 5: Repeat, but by folding the square corner to corner, in both directions (B).
Looking to make a paper fortune teller with funny fortunes… something a bit different to the boring written versions?
Step by Step Guide
Step 4: Make creases by folding the square in half (side to side) from both directions (A).
(3) You go on an unexpected sewer tour, and it’s a one-way trip!
(4) You quickly discover what the big red thing on the back of your chair is!
Watch instructions here or follow the little picture guide in the template!
Never made one, or can’t remember how? Follow my step-by-step teaching you how! They are quite easy. And once you get the hang of it, you’ll be making them all of the time.
I made it & was reminded that I love cootie catchers. It got me thinking, though… you could really use them to teach anything to your kids. I decided to try some fun games with them.
- You could use them to practice reading sight words. Write the different words inside & have your child practice reading the one chosen.
- States & capitols- write the capitol inside the flap- open to see the answer.
- Vocab words- definition inside, or vice versa.
- Foreign language vocab
- Word families, or rhyming words
- Math games- have numbers & they have to add, subtract, multiply the ones chosen, or make them into fractions…
- Story starters- write beginnings of sentance, silly words or phrases.
- Learning colors, shapes, letters, etc…
Download my template showing How to Make a Paper Fortune Teller or Cootie Catcher!
Our local school supply store gave out a summer learning packet when I went in recently. They had a cute idea that I made for my kids. It’s a cootie catcher already printed that has a list of words that the kids have to put into alphabetical order. When you open the flap, it has them in the correct order for them.
Remember paper fortune tellers? They are also called cootie catchers
I used to love making them the I was younger. We used them to tell our fortune- like who we were going to marry. Of course all of those fortunes came true 😉 Now, I love making cootie catchers with my kids!
The possibilities are endless! I would love to know any more ideas you have to use them.
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Finally, the person playing will look inside the fortune-teller and select another number. Now the person moving the fortune teller will lift up the flap corresponding to that number and whatever coping skill is written underneath is the coping skill the person should do.
Step Nine: Create the fortune-teller shape by pushing up and in at the same time. You may need to fiddle with the center a little as well. Ultimately, the fortune-teller should look something like images 9 (bottom-view) and 10 (top-view) below.
The person completing the activity should be encouraged to brainstorm coping skills that are unique to them. For this activity, the simpler the coping skill, the better (examples – pet your dog, listen to music, talk to a friend, color, etc). Ultimately, they need to think of 8 coping skills.
Part Two: Adding fortunes to help you cope
Step Eight: Using both hands, slip your thumb and index finger under the flaps.
We want to make our fortune teller look nice, so here are the supplies we recommend:
This is a take on the paper fortune-tellers some of you probably made as kids, but instead of writing things on the inside like “You will live in a mansion with four dogs” we are going to write coping skills. The idea is that when someone feels sad, stressed, worried, anxious, etc, they can play the fortune-teller game and in the end, they’ll get a coping skill they can go do to help themselves feel better.
The coping skills will be written on the inside of the fortune-teller, but first, you also need to put colors and numbers on the outside flaps. When playing the game, these will help determine what coping skills the person lands on. Here’s what you need to do:
I thought it would be fun to make kindness cootie catchers (or fortune tellers) for the kids to play with their friends.
This week’s kindness toward community challenge is to is perform 5 SECRET acts of kindness to friends. Don’t get caught and don’t spill the beans!
It’s week three of the 100 acts of kindness project and we are focusing on kindness toward friends!
Once you show the kids how to fold them they will be making cootie catchers non-stop. In case you forget how to make them we made a quick little video to show you how!
Kindness Acts for Friends:
- Carolyn from The Pleasant Thing has secret messages for friends which are so much fun to make!
- Kristina from Toddler Approved and her kids are surprising a friend with and outer space valentine!
- For even more ideas follow my Acts of Kindness for Kids Pinterest board!
This activity was really fun because the kids had never played with a cootie catcher or fortune teller before! I showed them how to make one and then we brainstormed different acts of kindness ideas we could put under the flaps.
There are tons of different ideas that you can write under the flaps depending on your kids ages and where you are playing with your cootie catchers. I think it’s always good to ask for their ideas first before giving any of your own–you may be surprised at what they come up with!