Christmas Cootie Catcher: Free Printable Fortunes, Plus a Blank Page to Fill In
When this is folded you will be holding a cootie catcher with eight Christmas fortunes hidden under its flaps, ready for whoever picks a number first. Each one is a small good thing that could really happen, the kind a kid checks off before bedtime: the end piece of the chocolate orange, something in the very toe of a stocking. The file also has the same square left blank, for the table that would rather write its own.
Download: Christmas cootie catcher, free PDF, Letter + A4. No signup, no email.
A cootie catcher drawn to fill its page prints two different sizes of toy off Letter and A4. Ours is a fixed square instead, 176 mm on a side, about 6.9 inches, the same measured square as our Halloween cootie catcher with the jokes under the flaps. Print it in a Letter classroom or an A4 one and every toy at the table matches.
What is in the file
Four pages, two squares. Pages 1 and 2 are for US Letter, pages 3 and 4 are the same two squares on A4, so you only print the pair that matches your paper. The first square of each pair has the fortunes printed in. The second has the numbers, the fold lines and nothing in the middle, and its title band says what it is for: Write Your Own Christmas Fortunes.
The dashed line around the outside of each square is the only line you cut. Every solid line inside it is a fold: the two midlines, the two diagonals, and the heavier diamond joining the middles of the four edges. Under the fortunes square the sheet carries its own reminder, Cut out the square. Fold on the lines, printed side down. The blank square's reminder starts earlier: Write a fortune in each middle wedge first.
The four corners of the square hold STAR, BELL, SNOW and GIFT, and those four end up on the outside of the finished toy. The numbers 1 to 8 run clockwise around the edge and end up inside, on the flaps you open. The eight fortunes fill the middle diamond, one to a wedge, each sitting in the same wedge as its own number.
Two of the eight fortunes will look upside down on the flat sheet and four will read sideways. Your printer is fine: each fortune is turned to face out of its own wedge, so once the toy is folded every one reads the right way up to whoever lifts the flap.
What you need
- The PDF
- One sheet of ordinary printer paper per toy. Thin matters here: the later folds go through several layers at once, and card stock will not fold flat.
- Scissors
- A pencil or a fine marker, if anyone is writing their own
- About ten minutes
How to print it
- Print only the pair that matches your paper. Letter is pages 1 and 2, A4 is pages 3 and 4. Fortunes first, blank second, in each pair.
- Set Actual Size, not Fit to Page. Fit to Page shrinks the square by a few percent, and the matching-size promise above goes with it. The toy would still fold, it just would not match anyone else's.
- Everything is black and white. The busiest page is 3.35% ink and the write-your-own page is about 1%, so a classroom stack will not dent the cartridge.
- To check the print, lay a ruler along one side of the square: 176 mm, about 6.9 inches, on either paper.
How to fold it
Nine steps, and only one of them catches people out. It is step 4, so read that one twice.
- Cut out the square along the dashed line. The dashed outline is the only cut on the sheet. Every solid line stays for folding.
- Fold the square in half, crease, unfold. Then in half the other way, crease, unfold.
- Fold corner to corner, crease, unfold, both ways. Optional, but every later fold lands easier on a ready-made crease.
- Turn the sheet printed side down. Blank side up, fortunes against the table. It feels wrong, and it is the step that puts every word the right way up in the finished toy. Skip it and the outside of your catcher comes out blank.
- Fold each corner in so its point lands on the centre, where the creases cross. The heavy diamond is the fold line here. Press all four flat. STAR, BELL, SNOW and GIFT are looking back at you, with the numbers around them.
- Flip the whole thing over. The fortunes are face up on this side.
- Fold each corner to the centre again. The numbers come back up facing you, and the four words go underneath, where they become the outside of the catcher.
- Fold it in half so the numbers end up inside.
- Slide thumbs and first fingers into the four word pockets and pinch. It opens one way, then the other. Work it a few times to soften the creases.
How to play it
One of you runs the catcher, the other picks. They choose one of the four words; you spell it out, one pinch per letter, opening the catcher one way, then the other. STAR, BELL, SNOW and GIFT are all four letters, so every turn takes the same four moves and nobody can complain about getting the long word. They pick one of the numbers showing inside; you count it out the same way. They pick a number once more; you lift that flap and read their fortune out loud. The fortune under flap 7 is fortune 7: You will get to lick the spoon.
The write-your-own page
The blank square folds exactly the same way. The difference is what goes in the middle, and who puts it there.
Write the eight fortunes flat, before any folding, in the eight wedges of the middle diamond, on the same side the numbers are printed on. Write on the back and the reveal is spoiled. Good written fortunes stay small and nearby: somebody will hum along to the next song, somebody will get the crispiest roast potato. If the table goes quiet at wedge five, prompts help: something to eat, something to hear, something to find, something to win. The four corners are empty on this page too, so the four outside words are yours as well.
For the plain year-round version of the same idea, with more on decorating it before you fold, the paper fortune teller template is the same square without the Christmas titles.
A way to use it at the party
For a class party, one fortunes toy between two kids beats one each: the catcher needs a runner and a picker, and swapping seats is half the game. Save the blank page for the second half of the party, once the printed fortunes have all been heard twice. For the kids' table at Christmas dinner, set out a blank one and a pencil while the food is still cooking. The fortunes get written while the potatoes finish, and read out after.
More for the season
The Christmas treat bag toppers print on the same plain paper, and the large-print Christmas word search suits the end of the table that wants to sit quietly. Everything we make is on the free printables page, and none of it needs an email address.
