Fold Me a Poem – a book to inspire some paper folding fun

The fine motor skills, and focus, needed to create origami animals is a way off for your toddler but they will be discovering the fun of folding paper (often not very well). Inspire them, and yourself, with this book of simple, sometimes silly, poems from Kristine O'Connell George, along with Lauren Stringer's illustrations which bring the little boy and his origami animals to life.  

This book of poems is perfect to share with your toddler, as each poem about one of the boy’s origami animals is short and sweet. The gentle illustrations add context, and sometimes comedy, to the poem on each page – you'll see a camel missing a leg using the salt shaker to stand, a buffalo kicking the tablecloth, and even big cats having a race.  

The poems tap into the boy’s imagined world, bringing his origami shapes to life, and are a lovely inspiration for you and your toddler to invent your own poem as you create and play.  

You certainly don’t need to be making intricate animals out of paper at this stage, but embracing your child’s imagination and folding paper into secret messages, hidden treasure maps or even magic spells to be hidden inside envelopes or boxes will bring their paper play to life.  

They might want to make paper fans or jumping caterpillars by folding paper into concertina shapes, or simply enjoy folding their socks, tops and jumpers when helping with the washing.  

All these simple folding games will help them to build those fine motor skills which might, in the future, mean they can make a paper frog if they want to!  

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