|Gideon’s battle was won with a tiny army because he kept dividing and sending home many of his men. This craft reinforces that idea of dividing up by constantly breaking apart the folding cube.
To make it easier for you to see I’ve made the images using blocks I’ve taken from a toy train. You could use any sort of wooden, plastic or solid block. The prototype (image at the end) was made with Styrofoam cubes painted yellow.
You can chose to use all six images or only use some of them if you are pushed for time.
|You will need – 8 solid cubes per child, some sticky tape and a printout per child. The printout contains 2 pages, one has the images, the other has instructions. The printout [download link] is set to 3cm cubes.|
| Start by attaching the blocks in sets of 2. Each ‘hinge’ is two pieces of normal sticky tape. Push two blocks together and place the sticky tape across the top.
Using that piece of tape as a ‘hinge’, fold the blocks backwards and secure the ‘hinge’ on the other side with another piece of tape. Repeat for all blocks until you have 4 sets of 2 blocks.
|Pick up 2 sets of 2 blocks and push them together with the hinges facing away from each other and four blocks facing you. Attach a hinge to the lower two of the four blocks facing you – remember to secure this hinge from the other side. Repeat with the remaining blocks.|
| We are almost there. You should by now have 2 halves of a folding cube.
Place both halves with the last ‘hinge’ you placed being the lower two of the four blocks facing you. Keeping these hinges on the outside, push the two blocks together. The final two hinges attach the two halves across the top of the cube. (if you are lost look at the pictures)
|Take the sheet of images and cut them out. It helps to reassemble the image before you stick it on. There are 6 images made of 8 squares each. Attach the images with standard glue working one full image at a time. Once one image is finished fold the block until you get another blank canvas.|