Origami Crane

Origami Activities For Kids

Posted by Tuttle Publishing

About

The Crane represents the most popular Japanese contribution to origami. It embodies elegant lines, perfect composition, and requires the folder to achieve a certain degree of skill to produce an acceptable model.
The crane has always been an important figure in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese art for many reasons, perhaps the main reason being that
they are beautiful birds with long legs, an elegant neck, a slender beak, and large, powerful wings. The crane is a symbol of peace and represents
an ideal of quiet strength and beauty, fidelity and faithfulness, and patience. It is considered good luck to see a crane because they often travel great distances and could be gone for a long time.
There is an Asian legend that the crane lives for one thousand years. Since the Japanese developed the folding design for the traditional paper crane, the legend has been extended to bestow luck and good fortune on anyone who folds one thousand cranes. Certainly, when times were difficult, anyone with the luxury of enough time to fold one thousand cranes was indeed blessed.

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You Will Need (1 thing)

  • Origami Paper - Use square paper of any size. Some people challenge themselves by seeing how small an origami crane can they make—the results can be microscopic!

Steps (14 steps, 15 minutes)

  1. 1

    Crease in half along the diagonals and the sides.

  2. 2

    Bring the three corners to meet the bottom corner.

  3. 3

    In progress...

  4. 4

    Crease by folding the sides to the center and unfolding.

  5. 5

    Pull the corner up, allowing the sides to meet at the center.

  6. 6

    Turn over.

  7. 7

    Crease the top section.

  8. 8

    Pull the corner up as in step 5.

  9. 9

    Fold the sides to the center and repeat behind.

  10. 10

    Inside-reverse fold the flap upwards.

  11. 11

    Inside-reverse fold the other flap.

  12. 12

    Inside-reverse fold the tip of the flap down.

  13. 13

    Pull the wings apart.

  14. 14

    Completed Crane. You can blow in the bottom hole to give it more volume.