Dancing Octopus - level 1

Dancing Octopus is the one of the simplest paperfoldings for kids. It involves simple cuts and paste as well. To start our journey to become a paperfolding master, dancing octopus will be a good practice for you and for your younger siblings and cousins.

1. Fold bottom edge up to top edge.

2. Place folded edge downward as shown.

3. Cut folded edge seven times vertically to mid-section for the octopus legs.

4. Bring the two edges together and tape two top layers from each ends to form a cylinder. Then draw an octopus face!!!

5. Slide two layers of octopus with your two fingers.

6. Your octopus will dance with legs moving.

Octopus should not be hard, but has to follow the steps correctly as shown. Cutting the wrong edge taping over outer and inner layers with one tape will fail you. So please be careful with those steps!^^

A Rectangle to a Square

Most of paper-folding art work use squared paper. But it is easier to find rectangular papers around us. Since paper-folding follows the symmetric rules often, it is better to have an exact square if necessary. Here is the direction how to make a square out of rectangle without using a ruler and a pencil.





1. Get ready with a rectangular piece of paper vertically as shown.





2. Fold top-right corner to left edge as shown. Make sure left edge lines up.

3. Cut out the leftover area that does not overlap as shown. Now you have a square!!

This method is usful in many ways, but you must start with an exact rectangular sheet of paper which has right-angled corners.

Paper Folding Experience

Introduced by my aunt, I started to fold paper with paper folding books. My first complishment was a crane with a help of my mom. I borrowed books from my aunt and learned new folds. For couple of my birthdays, my parents bought me the origami books for the gifts which I asked for. Paper folding has been my best friend for more than a decade.

With my interest and skills I used to make dolls, cases and etc as birthday gifts for my friends, and families. I also taught my friends how to make roses, birds and ornaments when they asked me for the instructions.


During the high school life, I could have From my high school, one of my school faculty suggested me to teach other students for an art credit. So I had Origami Class for two years sharing my skills and producing tissue case, dolls, Christmas ornaments, cases, and etc. Some were located in the school exhibitions for other people to get fascinated.



I also got a chance to work with kindergarteners and elementary students for volunteer. I felt great joy while my fellows enjoy making things.



Besides, I published a book called " Paper Toys for Beginners" as a high school capstone project in 2009 using a publishing website, Blurb. While organizing material for the book, I found how easy and close origami was to us!