Thread by @_MissieBee

(For those of us still in school next week...!)

HOW TO MAKE EXPLODING BOOKS - A THREAD:

(I was inspired by @MrBedfordsClass’s beautiful exploding books (or “squash books”) & made them with my class today but couldn’t find a clear enough tutorial! Tried to make my own below...)

https://twitter.com/mrbedfordsclass/status/1151146354049200134

You’ll need 3 squares of paper & glue.
1. Fold square in 1/2 diagonally into a mountain fold (/\)
2. Flip over & fold in 1/2 both horizontally & vertically into 2 valley folds (\/). You should end up with 3 folds, the diagonal fold in a diff direction to the horizontal & vertical

3. Lay the 3 squares out as “diamonds”, with the diagonal fold going from bottom to top. Turn the middle diamond over so the diagonal fold becomes a valley fold - the outer two diamonds should have mountain folds in the middle.

4. Overlap the right quadrant of each diamond onto the left quadrant of its neighbour and glue it down (I didn’t have glue to hand so have taped it here!)

5. See video - start from the left. I told the children “the bird wings come in together and kiss!” which seemed to help them get the hang of it!

6. See video - repeat on the right.

7. See video - flip it over.

8. See video - repeat (bird wings kiss!)

9. See video for completed book!
P.S. the better/cleaner the folds, the better it works! We stuck squares of card on the outside pages to make it sturdier, too. Thanks again @MrBedfordsClass! Ours weren’t half as good as yours though 🙈

I’ve just realised - @MrBedfordsClass’s were made using only 2 squares and I’ve done this using 3! So it’s completely up to you how many you choose depending on how much is going inside :)

(Or only 2 squares if you want yours to look exactly like the one in the video above!)