How to Make a Paper Whirligig

Video Transcript

"I'm now going to show you how to make a whirligig from paper. In this clip we need a plate, some card, some sticky tape, a sticky stick, a felt tip pen, a straw, scissors, and some string, and if you want to decorate it, a few sequins. Choose a plate that'll fit nicely onto your card, hold it tight, and draw around it. That'll make a nice round shape for you to start with. Hold the plate in the middle and try not to let it slide as you're doing it. Take it away and you've got your circle. Let's cut out the circle to start with, and then we've got a good base. And onto this circle we're going to have to draw a spiral. You might need a grownup to help you with that one, but if you've got a steady hand and you can turn the plate round as you're going I think you'll be able to manage. Choose the middle of the plate; I think it's about there, and I'm going to start with my pen, and I'm swirling it with my fingers and going round and round; leaving a nice width as I go around. I'm just turning it gently with my hand, and going out a little bit all the time. I think I can just stop turning it and go the rest of the way round until I reach the outside of the plate. So, I've gone round, and round, and round in a great big spiral. Where it reaches the outside of the plate that's where you start cutting, so in we go with the scissors. Keep on the line very carefully. Don't let it wander off, because if you do your whirligig'll fall to pieces very quickly. Round, and round, and round we go. Make sure that's got out of the way, and that you don't chop through it again; round, and round, and round. I find it easy to keep the scissors in the same place and turn the card as I go. That way, I don't get too muddled. Ooh, we're nearly at the middle already. Round we go, round the last bend and into the middle. Now, at the middle that's where you're going to fix your piece of string, so you need a little bit of Sellotape to start you off on that one, not too much, and I'm going to fix my other end of the string onto a straw. Then I can hang my whirligig up. Scissors down there; here's the end of the string. Put it on the sticky tape, fasten it to the straw and wrap it round the straw, and the other end fastens to the whirligig right in the middle. So, string goes on sticky tape, and that fastens to the center of your whirligig. And now you can decide to, how you want to decorate your whirligig. I've got some sequins here, and I find it easier to put the glue onto the card in a few little dots wherever you want round it. It can go all the way into the middle. Make it look very nice and fancy, and I just wet my finger a little bit and press them down firmly and that'll make it look like a space whirligig, or a Christmas whirligig, or a fairy's whirligig. You can decide what it's going to be for yourself. If you haven't got sequins you can easily do it with your felt tip pen, and just make your own patterns on here. I think I might do some butterflies again, I like butterflies, or some flowers. I'm just using one color at the moment, but you can use as many colors as you like. Some flowery butterflies there. If you did lots of colors it would look very pretty, and you could change the colors as you go round the whirly. Now then, as we hold it up the top comes first, and then the tail down behind it. And if you hold it up in the air just blow very gently, and round it goes. And that's how to make a paper whirligig."