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I have always been fascinated with origami and other paper folding crafts. I think it is so neat that from just a piece of paper you can make so many different things. Today I want to share with you how we made some 3D paper shapes. This would be great for geometry or just to practice the names of shapes. My kids thought these were really cool. They played around with them for a while. Then they tried making lots of other kinds of shapes out of paper. They were pretty fascinated by it all.
All you need to make these paper shapes is paper, scissors, a pencil, a ruler and tape.
We did 6 different paper shapes: Cube, Cuboid (rectangular), Cone, Squared-Based Pyramid, Triangular Prism (tent-shaped), and Octahedron (Diamond-like). For each of these I used an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper.
For the cone, I traced a large circle, then cut a wedge out of the circle. Wrap it up and add a piece of tape to secure it.
For the cube, you need a cross-like shape with even squares. Mine were 2 1/2 inches per side. You need four squares going down and three going across.
The Triangular Prism is made by dividing the paper into thirds. Then in the center section you will make your triangular cut-outs. I measured the sides of my paper sections to make the triangle side the same length. It ended up being 2 3/4 of an inch per side.
A Square-based Pyramid is started with a square and then triangles coming out from each side. Mine is about 3 inches per side. You have to make sure each side of the triangle is equal to the sides of the square.
For the cuboid, I divided the paper into fourths. Then one of the sections needs a square cut-out. I made this by cutting into the other parts and removing the sections.
The octahedron was the trickiest. It is a series of 8 equilateral triangles. Six of them are in a row facing opposite directions The other two are hanging off the ends. Mine I made 2 inches per side, but it ended up very small. You could probably fit a 2.5 inch one on a paper. To fold this up, you just start folding the triangles and it sort of just bends into the shape. Add tape to keep it all together.
These 3-d paper shapes would be fun hanging up by a string as a decoration, too!
Visit some other paper posts:
Engineering: Make Paper Hold Up Books
6 Paper Tricks That Look Like Magic
Engineering Experiment With Paper
This is part of the iHN Massive Guide to Homeschooling Math!
Need creative teaching ideas?
Kristi says
I love this idea. My six year old is learning about shapes and would love this activity. Thanks for taking the time to show each step. Arts and crafts are not my natural gifting. 🙂
swapna says
Interesting ! Shall introduce it to my kid soon 🙂
Mayan Magdi says
Wow!!!!!!!!
I was searching for a way to make 3D shapes and I didn’t find better than this shapes
Karyn Tripp says
So glad you found me & that I could help!
Elise says
hi, Thanks so much for this….. remembered doing it when i was a child but couldn’t exactly remember how to put them together. My six year old needed this for school. Thanks again.