Origami Stars

Each month, parents volunteer to come to class and teach a seasonal art project to the students. Today, we made a beautiful origami star! Origami is the ancient Japanese art of paper-folding. In Japanese, oru means fold and kami means paper. 

The two origami stars who put together this craft were Karissa's mom and Abby's mom.  

Each student needed two identical sheets of origami paper. 

One side had a design and one side was white. 

There were many steps. Since we were doing origami, many steps involved folding. Students were encouraged to carefully fold and heavily crease the origami paper after each step. 

After folding one sheet four times, it was time to measure and mark four areas to be cut. The moms provided a nonstandard measuring tool to mark the length of each cut. 

Next, it was time to make the four cuts. It reminded us of the time we made the compass rose! Each cut was at a cardinal direction: north, south, east, and west.  

The next step was to do some additional folds where the cuts were made.  

Finally, we glued the folds in a way that created a 3-dimensional point.   

We then repeated all the steps with the second piece of origami paper. The two 4-pointed stars were glued together to form this 8-pointed star.

When we were done making the stars, we went outside and created a panoramic picture. Do you notice anything unusual about this panoramic?  (Hint: Look at the person on the end.) 

 Click to Enlarge this panoramic picture. 

What did you like about this parent-lead craft project?

What other origami project would you like to create?