Crafts with My Hands
Primary 2 · Creative Arts
Crafts with My Hands
Lesson 1 of 3
14 min
Let's begin
The sun is hot. Uwase is sitting outside, and she is fanning her little brother with an old exercise book. Her arm is tired.
Her teacher takes one flat sheet of paper. Fold, fold, fold. In one minute the paper opens like a bird's wing. It is a fan, and it moves a lot of air.
The paper did not change. Only its shape changed. Today your hands will do that too.
Take any paper. Bring one edge over to the other edge.
Now stop. Do not press yet. Look at the corners.
Are the two corners sitting exactly on top of each other? Move the paper until they are.
Now press. Run your thumbnail along the fold, from one end to the other. Press hard.
You have a sharp, straight fold. A sharp fold is like the first brick of a wall. If it is straight, everything you build on top of it stands straight too.
If the corners did not match, the fold comes out crooked. Every fold after it will be crooked too. So match the corners first, then press.
Uwase lays her paper down the wide way. She starts at the short edge on the left.
Fold. Turn. Fold. Turn. She keeps going until there is no paper left to fold. She counted 10 folds in all.
Now the paper is a thin, stiff stick. She holds one end tightly in her fist. With her other hand she spreads the top open.
It opens wide, like steps, like a zigzag. That is a fan. She wraps a thread around the end she is holding, so it never falls open.
Two things make a fan work. Every fold is the same width. And you turn the paper over every time.
What if you forget to turn it over? Then every fold goes the same way. The paper rolls up on itself like a mat. No zigzag, no fan. Turning over is what makes the zigzag.
Keza is making a card for her mother. She folds an A4 sheet in half, short edge to short edge. Now it opens and closes. That is a card.
She wants a flower on the front. Here is the trick.
She takes a small square of paper and folds it in half. On the fold she draws half a flower. Only half. Then she cuts along her line, through both layers at once.
She opens it. Out comes a whole flower! The left side matches the right side exactly.
Why? Because the scissors cut both layers at the same time. What happens to the top layer happens to the bottom layer too. So the two sides must come out the same.
This works for a heart, a leaf, a butterfly, a tree. Draw half on the fold. Cut. Open. Get a whole one, matching on both sides.
Keza glues her flower on the front. Inside she writes: Murakoze, Mama. Her hands made that card.
This one has more steps. Go slowly. Press every fold hard.
Use a rectangle, like a page of newspaper.
The paper opens. A flat bottom appears, and a triangle stands up in the middle. That triangle is the sail. You have made a boat.
Did it go wrong? Do not throw it away. Open it flat and look at all the fold lines. Every line is a step you did. Fold it back along them and try again.
Warning
Scissors are sharp. Hold the paper with your other hand kept behind the blades, never in front. Cut away from your body. When you pass scissors to a friend, hold the blades and give them the handles.
Tip
Corners first, thumbnail second. Match the corners, then press with your thumbnail. Say it every time you fold and your work will come out straight.
Get some paper. Do each one, then tap Show answer to check.
Fold a square from one corner across to the opposite corner. What shape do you get, and how many sides has it?
Answer: A triangle. It has 3 sides.
Mugisha folds his fan, but he never turns the paper over. The paper just rolls up on itself. What did he forget?
Answer: He forgot to turn the whole paper over after every fold. Turning over is what makes the zigzag.
Uwase's folds are two fingers, then four fingers, then one finger wide. Will her fan open nicely?
Answer: No. The folds must all be the same width, or the fan opens crooked and will not close flat.
Fold a paper in half. On the fold, draw half a leaf. Cut it out and open it. What do you see?
Answer: A whole leaf, and both sides match. The scissors cut both layers at once.
You are folding the boat. You have just folded the bottom strips up on both sides. What should you be holding right now?
Answer: A hat with two points. If you are not, go back to step 3 and check that both top corners came down to the middle mark.
What you learned today
Quick check
Make a good fold. Put the steps in order.
Tap the cards in the right order.
