Sadako & the Thousand Paper Cranes

Author: Coerr Eleanor

Publisher/Date: GP Putnam, 1977

ISBN: 0-399-20520-9

Grade Levels Recommended for Use: 6-12

Brief Summary: Hospitalized with the dreaded atom bomb disease, leukemia, a child in Hiroshima races against time to fold one thousand paper cranes to verify the legend that by doing so a sick person will become healthy.

Topics: scalene, isosceles, right triangle, kite, line of symmetry, transformations

Suggested Activities:

1. Ask the students questions relating to geometry as you lead them through the origami folding paper process.
2. Go over specific definitions relating to geometry. The terms suggested from the link to literature are scalene, isosceles, right triangle, kite shaped quadrilateral, also make connections to multiple lines of symmetry with the same figure. Define origami as a multiple step process involving several complex two and three-dimensional transformations.
3. Once students have been shown and can fold a paper object, have them write a paper describing how they folded the paper to form the object.
4. Do a research paper on origami with social-cultural connections.
5. Algebra and origami with paper folding can be used to teach reasoning, problem solving, and sequencing.