Origami

Origami - love it, love it, love it!!
Kids love origami just as much as I do. They love the whole process of turning one flat piece of paper into a 3-D figure. This summer our library participated in the "Be Creative" Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP). If you don't know what this is, see their website here. The theme "Be Creative" gave us a huge range of topics to base programming on. This included anything that was loosely defined as Fine Arts. I held 3 different origami classes this summer, each one with a different subject matter. The first one was animal origami, where we did a cat face, a dog figure and a fox hand puppet. Next was water origami, where we did a boat - that sailed when you blew on it, a frog that jumped, a penguin, and an angelfish. Today was the last class, fun origami, where we did a flower bouquet, a crown (or hat), and a whirligig - it flies!

Most of these can be made with one sheet of 8x8 in sheet of origami paper. For almost all origami you have to have a square piece of paper. If you can't get a hold of origami paper, you can cut down a sheet of computer paper (by folding the top corner flush with the opposite side. You can then have the child draw or color on one side. Another idea is to use a square piece of wrapping paper. The exception of this was the angelfish (2 sheets), the frog (a green 3x5 index card), and the crown(a 22x22 in piece of butcher paper).

To find the various origami I usually browse through our collection. Some of my favorite books are A Kid's Guide to Origami by Michael LaFosse (this is a multi volume set) and The First Timer's Guide to Origami by Jill Smolinski. I love the Origami Club website! It has a wide range of origami and best yet, for many of the designs, they have these cute little animations of how to fold it.

I plan on getting some pictures of the finished product up later this week.

Sayonara!

Rachel