Wow, do these bring back memories!

Back in elementary school, I remember hiding our homemade “cootie catchers” under the school desks, playing this paper game with friends, right underneath the teacher’s radar. We used them to predict our futures (in jest), as well as predict who we were going to marry! Ahh, those were the days.

With a little help, cootie catchers can be a fun summertime diversion for your preschoolers. They’ll need some help assembling them, of course, as well as reading the “fortunes.” The counting and colors, though, provide good practice in age-appropriate skills!

Here is the best tutorial I found for making your own cootie catchers. We made ours with regular printer paper and it turned out fine.

Alternate ideas:

- Instead of colors on the top flaps, have your children draw animals, put family members’ names, or draw shapes. The letter-counting rule still applies.
- Make a silly answer version. Instead of writing fortunes, write silly answers under each of the 8 triangle flaps. Have your friend/child ask any question, then see which silly answer they get in return.
- Instead of fortunes, you can always write out compliments, draw funny pictures, write out a trivia question, or put down a (short) joke.
- Another fun idea: Write in funny tasks/actions that the player must do when he/she chooses the final number!