Paper Snowflakes Craft - Easy Winter Art Project for Kids

Symmetrical snowflakes start from a square piece of paper. Fold the short side of your paper to meet the long side as in the picture to make a large triangle.

Trim the excess paper so that you have a nice, double-layered triangle.

Snowflakes in nature are symmetrical and great examples of fractals - patterns that repeat themselves over and over again. To make our own repeating fractals, we're going to fold our paper into smaller and smaller triangles. This makes our design radiate around the center, just like a fractal. Each time we fold our triangle, we are making a new right triangle. A right triangle is a type of triangle where one side is a 90 degree, or right, angle. The side of the triangle opposite the right angle is called the hypotenuse. Whenever we fold our triangle, we want to bring the two corners of the hypotenuse together.

Fold the paper into a right triangle a third time.

For our fourth and final fold, we are going to fold the right angle to meet the hypotenuse. This will make kind of an odd shape, but give us one central point on the bottom that will be the middle of our snow flake.

Our favorite snowflakes all started when we started at the top of our triangle and cut down into the center of it. Our best snowflakes made a half circle or diamond that ended at the top of the section that wasn't folded, then cut even more out below that. This helps to create the long, elegant points of the snowflake.

Once you cut from the top down into the center, now you can cut triangles, diamonds, and semi circles from the edges. Make sure to leave enough of the folded edge to keep the snowflake together. If you cut off all of a folded edge you'll end up with a snowflake puzzle instead of a pretty snowflake to unfold. The picture shows a few different designs we made.

Sometimes, one of your smaller points just doesn't look quite right. It can be easier to shape them if you unfold your snowflake one time, then cut designs out of the thinner paper. Here's what our same designs look like when unfolded one time.

Carefully unfold your snowflake. It will be delicate! Then, display it proudly. We like to tape ours to the window or hang them from some string from the ceiling with a T-pin or thumb tack. You can also color them, decorate them with glitter, or leave them plain.