Pinwheel Model

The first known paper pinwheel originate in Europe where baptism certificates were folded into this unique shape during the 1800's. I must assume that either the fold is older than that, or the name was applied later, since the obvious use for a pinwheel involves pinning it to something, and letting the wind spin it. I can't imagine that Europians did this with baptism certificates. Here are the directions, so that you too can make your own paper pinwheel.

The first step in the pinwheel is to fold the paper into thirds. Years of folding trifolds have earned me a type of special sight for this, but there is sure fire way to divide a paper into thirds. Simply fold a paper into fourths, and remove one quarter of the paper. This has to be done horizontally and vertically for the pinwheel model, which will divide the paper into nine equal squares, like a tic-tac-toe board, or a pound sign (#).

Remove one quarter and leave a rectangle.

 
 
Turn the paper to the left, and fold into quarters again.  Remove one quarter. You will be left with a piece of paper divided into nine squares with valley folds.
 
With a bit of practice, you can discover where the folds are needed to divide the paper into thirds, and skip those first steps. Now that you have a paper, valley folded into thirds horizontally and vertically, we can begin folding the pinwheel.