Hello and welcome (back) to the blog. Planet Forward is a Canadian company and with tomorrow being Canada Day and all, we thought we would honour our nation with a craft. Whether you’re hosting a barbeque, going to the cottage, or just staying in there is no better way to keep the kids entertained than with an eco-friendly (and, in this case, patriotic) craft. So to commemorate this special day we’ll be making a Canada Day pinwheel. The craft comes by way of Canadian Living Magazine. So let’s get the kids and start crafting.

What you’ll need:

• Paper
• Glue
• Desired materials for decorations
• Scissors
• Straight pin (or push pin)
• Pencil with an eraser on top (or a length of dowel)

Instructions:

1. Cut out a square from a piece of construction paper. Make it festive by decorating it with Canada Day themes (such as maple leaves), or glue a piece of red construction paper to a piece of white paper, so the two colors will be displayed on your craft.
2. Fold one corner to its opposite corner in order to make a crease, unfold, and then take another corner and fold it to its opposite to make another crease. When you unfold it again you should have two creases on your paper that form an X.
3. Cut along each of the four crease about three-quarters of the way to the centre. Bend – do not fold, just a gentle bend – one of the cut corners to the centre. Leave the next corner and then bend the one after that to the centre. Alternate like that until four cut corners are gathered at the centre.
4. Place the eraser of the pencil at the back of the centre point.
5. Take a straight pin and stick it through the gathered corners into the pencil eraser (you can also do this by gently hammering a push pin into a dowel or any wooden type material that can serve as your handle).

Remember to always supervise children when they are making crafts.

What makes this craft eco-friendly is that you can reuse these pinwheels every year and you can use materials you already have in the house. For example, by using pencils instead of buying wooden dowels gives a use for those broken down pencils at the end of the school year.

These pinwheels have multiple uses as you can: have the kids make a slew of them to line the driveway; use them as an activity for the kid’s table; use them as a safer alternative to sparklers; or put them in cups full of sand or another receptacle to decorate an outdoor or indoor table.

The pinwheels would look great on your outdoor table, as they will spin in the wind giving the table a sense of movement and whimsy. A Canada Day eco-friendly craft let’s kids have fun while celebrating creativity, resourcefulness and the country they love.

Have fun!