Like many boys his age I know, my son has an interest in papercraft and origami. This interest has provided us with innumerable hours of fun making paper planes, gliders, origami animals, and so on. This morning, while trying to remember how to make a fort frame from newspaper without the aid of Google, I decided it might be better if we made some hats instead. We’d made some small ones the night before using 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheets of paper, but of course those were only large enough for the cat to wear, and he was only interested in playing along for a minute - at most. 

All you need to make a hat of your own is a full-size page from the newspaper (a crease in the center with two pages of content on the front and two pages of content on the back). If you want to get fancy, you can add staples at key points and punch a hole in either side of the finished hat so that you can tie some yarn or twine into a chin strap.

We’re planning to paint ours tomorrow using tempera paint, but finger paints or another thick paint would work just as well. Crayons, markers, or paper cut-outs pasted to the hat would work well for decorations, too, but watercolors would likely be too wet to add flair without causing structural issues.  There are a few different ways to fold a paper hat; the one we like (and the one pictured step-by-step below) is the samurai helmet:

Start with a full page of newsprint.

Fold the top left corner down so that the top edge is parallel to the right side of the page, forming a right triangle.

Cut or gently tear away the ‘tail’ that isn’t included in the triangle.

Now you have a square piece of newsprint folded to form a triangle.

Fold the triangle in half, crease the folded edge, and unfold.

Fold one of the outer points of the triangle down to meet the bottom point. Crease this edge.

Repeat this fold on the other side.

Fold these two flaps up so that their points meet the top point.

Take the left point you’ve just folded up and fold it outward at an angle.

Repeat on the right side.

There should be two layers of paper left below all the folds you’ve made so far. Take the topmost sheet and fold it until it is about three inches from the top point…

…like so.

Fold the bottom edge up about one inch and crease.

Fold the just-folded edge up once more. The bottom part of this fold should be level with the corners of the hat. This completes the front of the hat.

Flip the hat over. The back side of the hat is one thickness of newsprint.

Fold the bottom point of the back side toward the top point of the hat, stopping about three inches below the top point (as in the previous step for the front of the hat).

Fold the bottom edge of the back of the hat up about one inch and crease.

Fold the just-folded edge of the back of the hat up once more. The bottom part of this fold should be level with the corners of the hat and the front.

That’s it! I stapled our hats at the edges of the front and back brim, in the upper center (near where the point doesn’t quite meet the top of the hat), and to hold the ‘ears’ in place on the front.

They’ll be more impressive once we’ve attacked them with glitter, paste, and paint. We had so much fun with this style that tomorrow, we’re going to try making a pressman’s hat!