Yesterday my after school program students designed a wall piece in the main hallway of our school made of origami cranes and butterflies. For the past 3 weeks, 4th graders have been learning origami. They have had the choice to take their origami creations home, or donate them for this project based off of the artwork of Mademoiselle Maurice. Check out her website, http://www.mademoisellemaurice.com/ She has some great work, and the students loved how origami can be used for street art. Below is one of her works.
My 4th graders have loved doing origami. Origami has seemed to tame even the wildest of post-spring break classes. It does take them about a class and a half (50 minute classes) to learn a crane or a butterfly.
Currently we are learning how to make origami dragons, thanks to a great video from Art for Kids Hub. http://www.artforkidshub.com/category/origami/ We used their video for learning how to make a butterfly too. Their origami videos are great for my fourth graders. The instructions are clear, entertaining, and they go at a pace that my students can keep up with. Seriously the best origami instructions I have found for students. The students respond way better to following a video tutorial than paper instructions or even me showing them on the overhead. I do still pause at key steps, make sure everyone is understanding, and sometimes show how I make the same folds.
The fact that almost every student wanted to take their origami projects home, rather than donate them is a testament to their excitement about origami. I have had a large percentage of students that have gone home as well and looked up other origami tutorials and brought me presents of other origami creations. I had visions of our hallway design being much, much bigger, but a small amount of donated works kept that from happening. I am just glad that this close to the end of the school year, they are stoked about an art assignment. Here are some more pictures of our hallway design.
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