Origami, the art of paper folding has proven to be so much more than just a beautiful craft idea. One of the amazing things about origami is that you can take a flat
piece of paper, and turn it into a three dimensional object. This type
of manipulation helps children understand spatial reasoning. Daddy Chan has always been great with origami. He teaches Renzo how to fold heart shape for making birthday cards, he folds Santa Claus when Renzo prepares Christmas present for gift exchange, he also surprises Renzo with origami lantern using red packets. Renzo is not too good at art & craft, which isn't a bad thing to me, at least I do not need to worry about where to store a giant school bus made with cupboard though I know that's an absolutely brilliant creation by some kids. He only likes - Origami areoplanes!Renzo was rather obsessed recently and tried out many different paper planes by following an origami book we bought from Daiso long ago. Sometimes he needs help from Daddy but most of the time, he's having hours of fun with it on his own. He brings the folding experience to a whole new level when he decorates his planes by drawing patterns, coloring them or even giving them different names.
So Daddy was rather amused at how much Renzo enjoys origami and decided to get him another book with more patterns. Unfortunately, Daiso is not carrying any such books and we ended up at Popular. Renzo picked this "Robot Gami" book and I heard from Daddy it's pretty expensive, but we didn't hesitate, after all, as long as Renzo enjoys it. Little did we know at that time that this is a tad too difficult to follow, not just for Renzo, but for us too.We ended up spending hours figuring out how to fold these little robots. Daddy even gave up after a few rounds, and the most difficult piece took me 1 hour 20 minutes on my 3rd try. Yes the first 2 times I gave up at step 17 out of those 49 soul-destroying steps. Did Renzo make any attempts? Nope not really, he said this is really too difficult for him to handle. But he definitely did a great job in memorizing the robot names.
Then I started getting requests from him "to fold robot 344" at 6am in the morning. And a few times I ended up joining daddy to send the boys so I could continue folding during our 10 minutes car ride to school. Of course Renzo being Renzo, who is not too good at taking care of his "toys", handed out 2 robots on the first day to his good friend, a few more on the next day to his buddies. Let's just say, he simply has no compassion for my... poor fingers. But, you cannot deny that these little "creatures" bring him closer to his friends to certain extend. And guess what, I've decided to let him bring "robot gamis" on his first day of school next year, when he enters Primary 1, as ice breakers for him to make more friends easily in a brand new environment! Now, it's time to fold a few more to make sure I keep my skills sharp till then!
