ADVICE RATING |
  4.00 (Worth a try) from 2 votes (259 Visits) |
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Easy Origami for Little Hands |
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by gailkav  (October 2011) (rank 245th) |
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I am always looking for fun new activities to share with my grandkids, and I recently rediscovered origami as a great way to spend time with them. You might think origami is too complicated for little hands to grasp, but in fact there are very simple origami folding patterns that
even very young children can understand.
Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding, and it is usually the most complex and glamorous examples of the art that we get to see, especially on the Internet. But even the most gifted origami masters had to start somewhere, with a simple square of paper and a few easy folds.
The very basis of origami is folding a square or rectangular sheet of paper in half. From this you can create simple origami shapes such as a cat’s head, a samurai helmet, a boat, a hat or a paper cup. A good basic origami book for beginners will show you how to make these simple shapes. I recommend books by Fumiaki Shingu, a wonderful origami master who makes the folding diagrams so easy that anyone can follow them. You will find his simple cat, dog and rabbit folds in the book Animal Origami (published by Mud Puddle Books and available from Amazon) very suitable for small hands. Star with larger sheets’ of paper at first, then as the children become more dexterous at folding, they can try smaller sheets of paper and more complex designs.
The great thing about simple folds like the cat’s head, hats and boats is that they can be decorated after folding with googly eyes, glitter and stickers, enhancing the creativity and fun. You can also vary the paper. You can start with simple one color sheets of wrapping paper, and then advance to patterned paper, and gorgeous Japanese washi paper. You can buy origami paper ready cut to perfect squares and rectangles or you can cut your own from cheap wrapping paper. You can even use newspaper – do you remember making sun hats out of newspaper when you were young? That’s origami, and a fun craft to pass on to your kids and grandkids.
The Internet is a great source of origami designs and ideas. Visit Fumiaki Shingu’s website at en.origami.club.com and get started. Once you have mastered the basics you can share this fun craft with the little ones in your life!
