It's Official

I have become a full-fledged origami nerd. It all started out with a giant pile of scrap paper with no home. As a teacher, making lesson plans and worksheets and dozens of copies of everything, you end up with a lot of used paper- and if you're in Iraq, most likely you have nowhere to put it because recycling is not a hot-button issue around here at this point. 

Then I got this great idea: why not paint them with watercolors and make paper cranes out of them? 

That was back in December. It took awhile for the idea to take flight, but last week, we finally had our first meeting of the first ever origami club in Iraq (I'm sure it's the first, though I haven't checked), during which Lone and I taught the students how to make butterflies. This week's lesson: The Two-Part Elephant (you have to make the head and body separately). I even have a designated origami box filled with beautifully painted scraps of paper, a pair of scissors, glitter, and all the butterflies, cranes, and elephants I've folded so far!