On a recent bookstore visit I found a bunch of Origami books in the craft section, including Origami for Children. My son Oliver loves making paper constructions so I thought he might be interested...that was an understatement! He wanted to start by making a ninja star (no surprise there) so we sat down together to try it out. I assumed that I would do the first one, and then help him make more -- after at least 5 or 10 minutes struggling with the directions I was starting to wonder if the project was doomed. The entire time I was trying to decipher the instructions Oliver was begging to do it himself...I kept putting him off, explaining that it was very tricky! Well, wouldn't you know, when I gave up he quietly got to work and figured the whole thing out. He is a little origami master. After making a bag full of ninja stars he moved through several other ideas in the book, including the balloon, and an armada of ships including some of his own invention. Eventually we were able to make the star wand (shown above) by working together, but we have not been able to replicate it!
All in all I think the book is good for inspiration, but the how to's are quite confusing. Although my son was not deterred, he is extremely adept at making things, and is fine if the results do not exactly match the photo...as a matter of fact he prefers to make his own interpretations and is not exactly a perfectionist (see bottom photo)! I think the directions could be a lot clearer...the pieces get rotated and flipped without explanation which makes the steps more confusing than they should be. We have not had a chance to try all the ideas in the book but of the ones we did about 70% were successful. I will say, that I was able to make the little box on the cover of the book which is what drew me to the book in the first place...phew!
