Here’s another fun paper folding project! Make some simple origami cubes. These cubes are built from six different pieces of paper that fit together perfectly. They hold together without any tape or glue! After learning how to make paper ninja stars, my 8 year old was excited to try this project.
I found this project on Origami Mommy. I’m including instructions below, but if you prefer watching a video, I found this same cube on more than one YouTube channel as well.
To make the cubes, you’ll need 6 pieces of square paper. We used 6 x 6 inch origami paper, which is ideal, but regular copy paper will work also.
Step 1: Start by folding a piece of paper in half, and then open it back up.
Step 2: Fold each side over to the center line and crease it well.
Step 3: Flip the paper over.
Step 4: Fold the bottom left corner up and over to the right and crease it well.
Step 5: Then fold the top right corner over to the left and crease it well. (I accidentally rotated the paper between shots – sorry!)
Step 6: Now turn the paper so that the points face directly up and down. Fold the top corner down and crease.
Step 7: Then fold the bottom corner up and crease. Your paper should look like this:
Step 8: The corners will pop back up, but that’s fine. You don’t need them to stay down anyway.
Then make five more of these paper sections! It’s fun to use 6 different colors. I tried making a cube with two colors, and it turned out a little weird. Three colors works well.
Step 9: Now it’s time to start fitting the pieces together. Slide the end flap of one piece into the center fold of another.
Then add a third paper section.
Continue adding paper sections. As the cube becomes more formed, you’ll need to bend the flaps a little to tuck them in.
Here’s how the finished cube should look.
Note: My 8 year old had a little trouble fitting his first cube together, and I discovered that half of his paper sections were oriented the wrong way. Make sure that you fold the corners the same direction each time in steps 4 and 5. Owen had reversed his, but only some of them, so it was impossible to assemble the cube.
Otherwise, kids should be able to learn to make these without much difficulty! They are fun to make, and also fun to play with and stack.