Year 7 Origami lesson

On Friday before half term I thought I'd do something more creative and fun with my yr 7 class as they'd just finished their assessment and it didn't feel right to start a new topic just before the holidays! Students love origami and the art of paper folding has so many mathematical links. With my year 7's we discussed what shapes we were folding, estimated angles and even mentioned midpoints! There are lots of origami lessons on YouTube- I looked up some beginner lessons and decided to go with the leap frogs and stars. We watched each section, paused it to try ourselves (and have a mathematical discussion) before moving on to the next section. Students learnt a lot of important skills from trying something new and not giving up when it gets a little complicated to helping out each other if they managed a step easily and the person next to them struggled. One of my students even stayed behind to ask me about where he could buy some origami paper as he wanted to do more at home and show his family. I gave him some pieces to take away, it's rewarding to know that a simple lesson like this could create a new hobby for someone!