Customer Reviews

Nature Fold-Along Stories: Quick and Easy Origami Tales About Plants and Animals

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This book overcomes my previous misgivings about "storigami", a genre in which the "stories" amounted to little more than memory aids for folding the paper forms, with little intrinsic content or interest of their own. Here, however, Kallevig's narratives carry accurate and interesting nature information in fair-to-middlin' plots, along with paper forms which students can learn to do. I tested several of them on a 6th grader of only moderate manual skill, who was pleased at her success and proudly retold the stories to younger siblings at home. This suggests that even us clumsy adults could learn to do the stories while folding the forms!
The diagrams are excellent and easy to follow. Origami forms include: seagull, cicada, snake, owl, leaf, coyote (fox), duck, butterfly, Trillium, rabbit, fish, toad. Story topics include: food chains; life cycles; metamorphosis; habitats; photosynthesis; characteristic traits of reptiles, birds, fish, amphibians, ants. It is amazing how the information gets linked to concurrent folds in the process of producing the final paper form!
Kallevig's "Optional Follow-up Activities" would be useful in the classroom or at summer camp, as well as in a home setting. She provides a lot of additional information about each animal, plant, or eco-niche as well as thought-provoking research suggestions and quizes. I can recommend this little book as a useful addition to any storyteller's bag of tricks.
--reviewed by Fran Stallings, Spring 2009 Territorial Tattler

Nature Fold-Along Stories: Quick and Easy Origami Tales About Plants and Animals is a unique book that teaches the reader how to use origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, to craft paper models of natural creatures and objects while simultaneously telling a story. Black-and-white photography and line diagrams to illustrate the paper folds step-by-step. Lists of optional follow-up activities to each of the twelve fold-along stories round out this wonderful hands-on book, especially ideal for anyone who teaches, entertains, or works with children.