Folded Paper Collages

This awesome project was so popular last summer we did it again this summer - and the results were amazing! These are done with tiny sticky note-sized brightly colored copy paper, folded and glued into a symmetrical design to a black construction paper square.  As you can see from these examples, we also incorporated punched out circles.

The set up for this project is shown at the right. I showed the kids how to make basic folds (diagonals, hills, valleys, etc.) then encouraged them to make up their own folds. The idea is to choose a color and make four identical pieces from that color to place into a symmetrical design. Prior to gluing, the kids needed to fold the black paper diagonally in both directions, then unfold and fold again in half and in half again (quarters), and open. Flatten well and use these fold lines as guidelines for gluing down the folded "origami" papers symmetrically.  Beautiful!