Origami: a great way to train fine motor skills and cognitive skills

Origami is a very therapeutic and educational paper art form. Most origami models only require a sheet of paper and a series of folds, while others require one or two cuts to form slots to secure the pieces or create certain shapes. Folding and cutting are great for helping children develop fine motor skills, as well as helping people with hand injuries in a therapeutic way.

There are many simple origami diagrams that beginners and children can easily follow and they only require a few folds. Not only does this help train their fine motor skills to fold and manipulate paper, it also learns to identify different shapes that adults can help them name. For example, the child will start with a square and fold it into a triangle or rectangle, continue to fold to make a diamond, and so on.

Another fantastic benefit of origami is training hand-eye coordination. Since most of the folds in the paper model need exact placement and manipulation, it is perfect for practicing hand-eye coordination, especially for young people.

In order to maximize the origami learning benefits for children, provide them with a wide variety of colorful and textured papers to help them learn colors and textures, and try different simple models to help them learn different shapes and objects. Some cool models that kids can make range from animals, clothes, fruits / vegetables, vehicles, buildings, etc.

For slightly older children who are learning verbs, this is a great opportunity to help them learn actions and directions as they play. Talk about all the actions and instructions with the children as they play to help them identify different verbs and instructions and to teach them without making it feel like school. For example, here are instructions for making a paper hat to show you how many different things children can learn from an origami model:

First, start with a colorful rectangular-shaped sheet of paper. Fold the top down and create a crease in the middle. Now fold it in half from left to right as if closing a book and press down to make a crease. Open the book and fold the top two corners to the center to make it look like a house. Finally fold the lower ends up and open them from the bottom. You now have a triangular shaped hat.

As you can see, children are constantly learning their vocabulary and training their hand-eye coordination, as well as their fine motor skills. The benefits of origami are endless. It’s fun, inexpensive, and educational for people of all ages.