Origami balloon

Origami is a low-fuss craft activity for kids: no glue, no sticky tape, just squares of coloured paper and you're ready to go.  Just watch the video below and learn how to make an origami balloon.

What you need:

• 1 x square of origami paper

Number of players:
1

Activity:

First you are going to make a series of folds that will serve as guidelines for all the other folds you will be doing later.

Fold the paper in half. Unfold it. Turn it around and fold it in half again the other way. Open it out again and then fold it over diagonally.  Open it out again and fold it diagonally the other way.

Keeping it folded diagonally, bring the bottom corner and the righthand corner together and direct the paper between the two corners to fold inwards (see the video). Do the same again with the lefthand corner.

You will now have two small triangles sitting folded on top of each other, with a squash-fold  in between.

Fold the right hand side of the top triangle upwards to meet the middle. Do the same on the other side. You will now have a small diamond sitting on top of a triangle below.

Turn it over and do the same on the other side, so that you have a small diamond shape with a split down the middle on each side. Turn it around so that the split runs horizontally across the centre. Fold up one corner to meet the centre. Fold down the top corner to meet the centre. Turn it over and do the same on the other side. 

Rotate it so that the split runs vertically up the centre.  Now take the pointy flap on the right side and fold it to meet the other folded flap that runs across the centre.

Take the central flap and push its tip so that it opens out to make a pocket. Fold the small pointy flap in again and tuck it into the pocket. The edges should sit flush as one edge. Do this on both sides. (N.B only one end of the shape will have foldable triangle flaps. The other end is left as is.)

Pull the edges outward (see video). One end of the shape should have a small hole in it. Blow into the hole until the shape inflates like a balloon (see video).

• Thanks to our sister company Kidspot Australia for creating the instructional video.