How to make a paper zoo: easy origami animals for kids

Paper crafts are great crafts to make with kids, cheap, easy and disposable. For this craft I have selected several easy animal origami patterns, which make for a perfect little paper zoo - imaginative, and fun to play with. I had great fun making these, and my daughter loved playing with them. The first few patterns I'm sharing are very very easy that can be done by young kids with minimal parental assistance. The rest of the patters are classed as easy, but a few were tricky for an origami novice like myself thus best left for older children or adults.

Please note, this post is written in collaboration with The Works. 

I checked The Works for supplies for origami and found lots to choose from - from books on origami to stacks of origami paper. Origami paper is quite thin so folding it is easier, but you could just use normal white paper too. With white paper you can then ask your kids to colour in the animals and draw them faces. We used normal coloured paper as we wanted to have a nice and bright zoo. You can find both white and coloured papers on The Works too.

If you are using normal A4 or A5 sheets the only thing you need to do is to is cut them in squares. A simplistic tip perhaps, but I do this by folding the upper corner to the opposite edge, so the paper looks like a straight-edged triangle sitting on top of a rectangle on the bottom. Then just cut away the rectangle!

The easiest animal origami patterns are probably these bunny, bear and cat heads - these are very very easy and totally appropriate for kids. They will enjoy drawing faces on them too. These were my daughter's favourites and she adored drawing them little faces, complete with mouths and beautiful eye lashes.

You could also have some flying creatures in your zoo. These twirling birdies can be thrown like a paper aeroplane too and they will twirl to ground. Swans, pelicans and bats are fairly simple and suitable for older kids. For adults these little budgie birdies and butterflies make a good challenge. As for land-dwelling animals, some ideas could be elephants, dogs, horses, foxes and penguins. 

Possibly the most fun are these little amphibians though - jumping frogs. There are two different designs you can use (these jumping frogs and these jumping frogs are particularly good), but both are pretty complex and suitable for older children really. Younger children will love to make them jump though and you could even have a race with them.

And if you want - you could easily make this paper zoo into a Noah's Ark too. All you need to do is to fold a great big boat and if you are feeling brave enough, set it in the bathtub too!

What did you think of this paper zoo? Which one of the animals would you do?

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