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Make a Pride windmill

Make a paper windmill to celebrate Pride in your local community.

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You’ll need

  • A4 paper
  • Scissors
  • Paper drinking straws
  • Split pins
  • Coloured pens or pencils
  • Dowel (optional)
  • Sticky tape (optional)
  • Circle sticker (optional)
  • Map pin or push pin (optional)
  • Hammer (optional)

Before you begin 

  • Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
  • Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers 
  • Some people may be in the process of questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity or may not have shared their identity with anyone. Make sure everyone knows they don’t have to share anything about themselves if they don’t want to. It’s important that everyone feels comfortable in this activity, as well as knowing how they can access support. 
  • Young people may share aspects of their identity that may be new to them, new to you or new to the rest of your group. This is a very brave thing to do, and it's extremely personal and different for everyone. Make sure you look out for these individuals and provide a safe and calm space for them to process their emotions. Make sure to model affirming responses to anything shared by your young people.
  • There's a range of labels young people and adult volunteers may use to describe their sexual orientation or gender identity. For example, asexual, pansexual, nonbinary, or questioning. Take the time to research these, so you feel comfortable in your knowledge of them should a young person or adult want to discuss their sexual orientation or gender identity with you.
  • It's the responsibility of all adults in Scouts to help develop a caring and supportive atmosphere where bullying in any form is unacceptable. Look out for any signs of homophobic and/or transphobic bullying and language. See our guidance on preventing and dealing with bullying. You may want to create a zero-tolerance policy towards LGBTQ+ bulling or discrimination within your Section or Group rules.   
  • You may want to visit our LGBTQ+ pages to find out more about supporting LGBTQ+ members in Scouts. 


Running this activity

  1. Gather everyone together in a circle. Ask if anyone knows what Pride month is. 
  2. Explain that Pride month is a time to celebrate LGBTQ+ people and show our support for their community, though we should be doing this all year round. 
  3. Explain that a lot of people may have had negative reactions, experienced bullying or abuse, or been discriminated against because they’re part of the LGBTQ+ community and this isn’t acceptable.
  4. Tell everyone that at Scouts, we welcome and accept everyone, regardless of gender identity or sexuality. By taking part in this craft and showing our support, we can celebrate the inclusion we’re so proud of. Messages of support can make a big difference for LGBTQ+ people. We can also show support to the LGBTQ+ community by being non-judgemental, avoiding assumptions, being accepting of everyone, challenging language misuse, and reporting any homophobic or transphobic bullying to an adult. 

Why is a rainbow flag used during Pride? 

  1. Explain that the symbol for Pride is a rainbow flag and it’s used to represent the LGBTQ+ community all over the world. Over the last few years the Pride flag has been updated and changed to better include and represent more communities, and one of these updated versions is the Progress Pride flag. The Pride flag was created by American artist and equal rights activist Gilbert Baker. It was first displayed in 1978. The original design had eight stripes, instead of the six normally seen now, and each of its colourful stripes had a meaning. Red means life, orange is healing, yellow is sunlight, green is nature, blue is harmony, peace and art, and violet is spirit.
  2. We can show our support and that Scouts is a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community by choosing to display Pride flags or the rainbow symbol. Pride flags may help to remind people that they’re loved and accepted for who they are. Individuals can also display or wear Pride flags to show that they support or are part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Run the activity 

  1. Tell everyone that you’re going to make a windmill for Pride. 
  2. Take a piece of paper and cut it into a square shape. You could also use square paper.
  3. Decorate both sides of the paper. You could add a supportive message to the LGBTQ+ community or create a rainbow design. 
  4. Fold the paper diagonally, so it turns into a triangle, then crease it lightly. Repeat this in the opposite direction. 
  5. Next, unfold the paper. You should have made a creased ‘X‘ shape across the middle of the square.
  6. Cut about halfway down each crease, making sure not to cut all the way.
  7. Take a straw and a split pin.
  8. Bend each corner of the paper into the middle and hold it in place with your finger. You could also hold them in place with a sticker or some tape, or ask a friend to help. Make sure to bend it gently, rather than folding it, so it creates a windmill effect.
  9. Once each of the four corners has been bent into the middle, take a split pin. Being careful of your fingers, gently push it through where all the sheets of paper meet in the middle and the straw. This should be done with adult supervision.  
  10. Now, test your windmill. It should spin!

If you want to use dowel stick, rather than a straw, bend all the four corners into the middle and stick them down with tape, then place a sticker over the top. 

Take a map pin or push pin. Carefully push it through the centre of the sticker. 

Carefully push the pin into the one end of the dowel stick. It should firmly secure the windmill in place, but it still needs to allow the windmill to turn. You may need to tap it in gently with a hammer. This should be done with adult supervision or by an adult volunteer. 

Reflection

In this activity, we learned about the rainbow and its connection to Pride. Did anyone know about the rainbow Pride flag? 

This activity was about doing something to show our Pride and support the LGBTQ+ community. Where are you going to put or use your windmill?   

What impact could the windmill have on people who see it? How would you feel if you saw one of these windmills? If you are LGBTQ+, how would it make you feel? If you are an ally to the LGBTQ+ community, how would it make you feel? Why do you think people in the LGBTQ+ community might need to feel more accepted, especially by wider communities? People don't need to share their reflections with the group if they don't want to.
This activity also needed people to problem-solve. Did anyone have any problems making their windmills? What did people do when things were difficult or fiddly? You may have asked someone to help for the trickier bits, or you may have used tape to hold down the corners or a hammer to help you push the pin in and make the windmill. Sometimes we ask for help from a friend or grown up, and sometimes we can try to work the problem out ourselves.  

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Scissors

Supervise young people appropriately when they’re using scissors. Store all sharp objects securely, out of the reach of young people.

Sharp objects

Teach young people how to use sharp objects safely. Supervise them appropriately throughout. Store all sharp objects securely, out of the reach of young people.

  • If anyone struggles with fine motor skills, they may struggle with the folding and fiddlier bits of this activity. People could also work with a partner or in a small group, so they can help each other. For example, they could help with the folding or holding down of items or pushing the pin in. An adult volunteer or young leader should be there to offer help to anyone who needs it.
  • If anyone struggles with fine motor skills, they could use larger materials. People may struggle to hold pens, paintbrushes or pencils to write with. You could swap out the items for something easier to handle. You could use different objects for people to craft, paint, draw or print with, so there’s a range of items for people to be able to grip and hold.

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Beavers My World Challenge Award
Cubs Our World Challenge Award
Scouts World Challenge Award

You could learn more about the history of the rainbow flag or other LGBTQ+ flags.

You could use the windmills to create a display and tell other people about the rainbow flag.