3rd Grade Origami

As my 3rd graders are wrapping up a unit on Japanese art, the last thing we're doing is origami. I love teaching it; it's so fun, and there's no mess! I really like to teach the cranes because they have a special story. However, they would have been too difficult for the group of 3rd graders I have this year. So, I looked around for other options. The little dog and cat heads (the ones that there are usually directions for in every package of origami paper) would have been too simple. So, I decided on Samurai helmets! Many of the students already knew that Samurai were Japanese warriors. I explained to them that the Samurai wore special helmets, even during peaceful times, to show their status as a warrior. The students really liked these, and there are no difficult inside reverse folds! If I choose an origami project with inside reverse folds, I often end up doing that fold for half of the class. But, with this project, I just ran off 25 copies of the directions, and had the students follow along as we all did it simultaneously. I told them that if they got each step without any help from me, that they must be really good at origami, and they could help anyone at their table who needs help. End result: every student had an origami piece to be proud of!