Journey North Whooping Crane Migration

Whooping Crane

Kids Make Wisconsin's Biggest Paper Crane!

Every year the 4th graders of Alexander Middle School in Nekoosa, Wisconsin make 1,000 paper cranes in an assembly-line "Crane Folding Factory." In 2007, a couple of students finished early in art class and decided to fold a large paper crane with a wingspan measuring about 18 inches. One student said that it would be fun to make the world's largest paper crane. Since that had already been done, here's here's the story of Wisconsin's 2007 largest paper crane!

Parents donated rolls of paper. The 4th graders measured 25 feet of paper and taped 12 strips together to make a 25 ft. x 25 ft. square to fold their giant paper crane. Here the students from room 405 help to tape two strips together at a time.

The paper started to get so large that they had to move from the hallway to the multi-purpose room to tape the paper. It took all of the students from room 401 to assist in taping the monstrous square.

Here students are making the first diagonal fold. Then they had to open the crane back up and fold it diagonally the opposite direction. Finally this group had to flip the paper over before the next group of students came to help.

It took many students to get this humongous piece of paper flipped over.

The next step was to fold the paper horizontally, open it up and fold it horizontally in the opposite direction.

The students had to take off their shoes and crawl into the paper to make sure it was squished and flattened properly.

They worked to get it squished and flattened.

THey had to make the first kite fold and then flip the paper over. As you can see, they had to climb into it again to get the job done!

Now they have a perfect kite fold on both sides. They took several more steps before finally making all of the folds.

A group of four students gave up their movie time to come and help hang the "giant crane." It's final measurements were a 25 ft. wingspan, a head height of 12 ft., and a tail height of 13 feet.

The "giant crane" was available to view in the school from Nov. 8 to Nov. 9 during Parent/Teacher Conferences. Next,the "Giant Crane" is getting red paint stripes to become "The Candy Crane."