Zandra Mok
Using origami (Japanese paper-folding art) to help kids follow instructions and sequencing
Origami is great way to introduce math concepts and support their following of instructions. My students in our special school (some of them are autistic) just love it. T
Before actually giving directions for origami, I explain the different folds to my students. Origami is a really different skills than most of my students have, and while the activity is challenging, when we further break it down into smaller steps, our students are happy that they can make it!
I give the directions one step at a time to the group. patterns that are more than 8 or 10 steps long are typically too long for a group of 3 students to complete in a 20-30 minute speech therapy session.
I always make sure that I can fold any pattern relatively easily before trying to give directions to my students. If I can't explain it clearly, I can't expect my kids to be able to follow the direction.
There are tons of free origami patterns online. Origami Fun is one of them. It has a lot of great PDF patterns that are one to two pages long. To break it down we can add visual schedules to help them focus.
