Origami for Kids

I just received the tape and played it for myself. I'm very pleased with it, and really believe it will help my young nieces!

The 'star' of the video is a young girl (looks 12), Rebecca, and she demonstrates - with the help of Mr. Takeshige (origami master), her mother, and two other kids (a boy and a girl) - how to fold many origami items, by folding these for the camera. I think the fact that a young girl is the host and does much of the instructing and folding herself, is very encouraging; it shows a child that this is something any kid can do, boy or girl.

There are two parts to this hour-long tape. The first part is the beginner's portion, followed by a challenge section. The video actually goes very quickly and offers a nice amount of interesting folds to create: from a paper boat (beginners) to a frog (challenge). The beginner's portion has "playback" features - in that Rebecca asks to have a fold repeated, and the film repeats itself (you don't have to stop, rewind, etc). The "folders" in the video also fold, then unfold and refold each step to help kids follow along. The challenge section is different - and Rebecca informs you that here you will have to use your vcr remote control to pause, replay etc in order to see the techniques repeated. The film breezes right along and offers many folds - off the top of my head I'd say about 8 or 10 items are featured.

I believe this video will be just what my nieces need - or any child (or adult) having trouble learning origami from 2D media (book).

My only note of caution is about Mr. Takeshige (Katsuhiko). He is a very good teacher in this video - but he has scarred hands! His hands appear to show burn scars across both of them; and it's a shock to see at first! I say this because it shocked me at first, and I worry if it will bother my nieces when they see it. It's rather distracting at first - but I found I could overlook his scars and just focus on the folding. But, it's worth mentioning in this review, and worth preparing your kids for!

Otherwise, I think it's a good buy!!! The final critics though, are my nieces -- but I'm confident they will agree!