ACK! Woo from fantastically funny Three Woofs and a Woo gave me cooties… well, a cootie catcher at least.
Lily’s enjoying it so much, we thought we’d make a few more. It’s been years since I made one of these and I’m pretty sure we never called them Cootie Catchers but google the name and you’ll find a number of sites offering instructions. I thought I share some quick instructions here, in case it’s been 15+ years for you too since you made them.
- Fold a square piece of paper in half. Open it and fold it in half the other way.
- Take each corner of the square and fold them into the center.
- Keeping the folds in place, turn the paper over and again fold each corner into the center of the square.
- Repeat step 1 and fold the square in half and then again the other way to re crease the folds. You can now carefully slip your fingers in under the four corners underneath.
- Once you have the finished shape of the cootie catcher, you can go back and write on it. (Click on the next picture to see the whole photo sequence bigger.)
We added the colours red, blue, green and orange to the top four squares. Inside we numbered the triangles 1 through 8 and under the numbers we wrote funny statements and fun instructions for the player to follow like “cluck like a chicken” or “stand on one foot”.
There are so many ways to play with the cootie catcher. Perhaps the most obvious is to use it as way to determine a secret admirer with the names of possible candidates written under the numbers. It can be used to predict fortunes or be a way to spread some love with positive messages. The possibilities are endless.
well, that’s just the funniest thing Annie! Aloka just made her first one two days ago!! Weird, it must be a universal 7-yr-old thing, ha!
we love those! Lisa at 5 orange potatoes posted a while back a nature scavenger hunt type of thing using them, and i’ve taught a coop class where we used them to kind of “test” ourselves on what we’d learned – you can use them for everything!!
haha! awesome. we have been making these a lot in the past year but with out the cootie catcher theme. i have never known what to call them either. thanks for the laugh.
Oh…I haven’t played with one of these in YEARS. I’m excited. :)
já brinquei muito com isso qdo criança!
I’ve been trying to remember that one for ages !! thank you thank you !! we used to play this a lot when I was in primary school and I wanted to make some with my daughter :)