This week our Summer Reading Program origami workshop for kids featured frogs. First I taught them a very simple hopping frog model that really leaps impressive distances! I had folded a less complex version by Davis Jacque which is very cute, and then I had a jumping competition between that model and a slightly more complex version. After demonstrating the vastly superior leaping ability of the second model, I proceeded to show the kids how to make their own.
Then we moved on to the much more complex traditional origami frog. This was harder for the kids, who did not have much origami experience. The teens who attended were able to make the series of progressively smaller reverse folds to form the legs, elbows, and wrists of the frogs, but the younger kids were ready to call it good when they had four recognizable appendages. But everyone had a great time and was very happy with their frogs.
One of our staff members had the cool idea of folding origami frogs to tuck into this year’s great winner of the Newbery Medal for children’s literature, When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead. Because Miranda, the main character, folds origami frogs as gifts, my colleague Heather thought it would be cool for kids to discover an origami frog inside when they check out the book, so I’ve gotten some practice folding frogs this year!
