Welcome to the first Tween Zone Weekly Challenge! Each Friday, we’ll share a new activity to challenge your thinking, creativity, and STREAM skills.
Let us see your final projects by sharing them on social media using the hashtag #PoudreLibraries. We’ll try to share as many photos as possible before the next week’s challenge gets underway.
Supplies needed
- Paper
- Scissors, if the paper isn’t already square
Origami can be as easy as making a paper airplane, or as complicated as putting together a large polyhedron with dozens of pieces.
Mind-Blowing Modular Origami : The Art of Polyhedral Paper Folding by Byriah Loper
These three-dimensional models are created from many small pieces of paper that are easily folded and then cleverly fit together to form a spectacular shape. They range from paper polyhedra to bristling buckyballs that are reminiscent of sea urchins—to ornate flower-like spheres.
This week’s challenge is to first learn how to fold paper into simple parallelograms, and then to put those parallelograms together to make more complicated shapes.
We’ve provided instructions for two different types of parallelograms, and for making cube, or a star that transforms into an octagon. But you can always come up with your own design!
If you don’t have origami paper, that’s ok. Most other paper will work just fine, just pick the thinnest paper you can find.
We’ve included instructions for how to turn rectangular paper into square paper as well.
Instructions – Downloadable PDFs
Parallelogram 1 (for star)
Parallelogram 2 (for cube)
Don’t forget to share your final origami with us – use the hashtag #PoudreLibraries. Good luck!