Thanksgiving Origami

Turkey origami courtesy of tammyyee.com

I'm not sure how this idea manifest: a combination of having students for 2 days and not wanting to begin any substantial topics that will be forgotten after the turkey stuffage, and paper being a topic as I put together my spring materials and write grant requests. Somehow my brain came up with board games (no-tech + logic), coloring (no-tech + art), then origami (low tech + logic + art).

I found a few origami crafts specifically for Thanksgiving that were available on websites. There are many more resources on YouTube, but it's blocked by the district filter. My next project will be figuring out how to transfer videos from YouTube to TeacherTube...out of sheer necessity and frustration!

Update 11.22.2010: most students enjoyed the online coloring sites and didn't try the origami on the first day. This reminds me of the coloring phase I experienced as an adult because it was relaxing. I had forgottnen that coloring was to become part of my classroom management plan :)

For the students who did make some origami, they were also engaged and completed a few projects to take home. Lesson could not have gone better!