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Construct a buddy ball for your best friend!
Skill Level: 
Time Needed: 45 minutes
Age(s): 9 to 12
Appropriate For: Birthday
Supplies Needed:
- Elmer's Washable School Glue™
- Construction Paper
- Marker
- Pencil
- Tracing Paper
- Scissors
- Cardboard
Project Rating:
Instructions
- Draw a circle on a piece of cardboard. The circle should be about the size of the bottom of a soda can. (Trace around a soda can if you desire.) Draw a triangle inside of the circle. Make sure that the three points of the triangle are touching the perimeter of the circle. All lines of the triangle should be equal.
- Trace the circle onto a sheet of tracing paper for a pattern. Cut out the pattern. Make sure yu cut out the circle but not the triangle. The triangle will guide you when it is time to fold.
- Trace twenty circles on sheets of different-colored construction paper. (You do not need to draw the triangle lines.) Cut out the circles.
- Place the tracing-paper circle on a construction-paper circle. Fold the construction paper and the tracing paper along the triangle lines. Repeat for each of the twenty circles.
- Write a word to describe your best friend on each circle. Examples include funny, honest, smart, and kind.
- Begin gluing the folds of the circles together. Join the sides so that the inner triangles point toward the center. It takes five triangles glued together to form a complete section of the ball. Do the same with another five triangles. This will be the top and the bottom of the ball.
- Glue the remaining ten circles together in a row. Glue the row around the base of the top portion of the ball.
- Write your friend a secret note. Sign your name and date it. Place the note inside of the completed portion of the ball.
- Glue the bottom section of the ball to the rest of the ball. Let the glue dry completely.
- Give the ball to your best buddy. Agree to read the note at a later date!
- You may choose not to seal the note within the ball, because you would have to destroy the ball to get the note. However, you might use a paper clip to seal the final circle of the Best Buddy Ball on one side. Then, you would have a "door" that opens and closes, and you could retrieve messages easily.
- Use this project to practice letter writing with your students. Show students how to write a friendly letter. Then, encourage students to write their own letters to their best friends using the proper format. Have students enclose the letters within their buddy balls.
- Have students write a short story explaining how they met their best friend. Encourage students to use lots of descriptive words in their writing.
- Ask students as a group to brainstorm a list of descriptive words used to describe a person. Write students' suggestions on a large sheet of paper, and display it for students to see while they write.
- Have students measure the diameter of their circle pattern. Then, have students calculate the radius, perimeter, and area of the circle. Provide students with other circles of varying sizes, and ask students to do the same.
