How to make an easy origami lotus flower

We just love this origami lotus flower activity from CLEO.

Click on the link for CLEO's easy -step-by-step guide to making an origami lotus flower.

Tip: Once you're on the CLEO website, click on the word skip underneath the film to see the video into easy steps.

Photo courtesy CLEO (Cumbria & Lancashire Education Online)

Here's an Ancient Egyptian bowl from the British Museum collection.

Can you see the lotus flowers around a pool?

Ancient Egyptians used pictures of a water pool and lotus flowers to symbolise rebirth and new life.

Image copyright the Trustees of the British Museum

See the bowl on the British Museum website.

The Ancient Egyptians believed in an Afterlife - a place where you could live again after you had died.

They would put bowls like the one above with with the lotus design in tombs to show that the dead person wanted to come alive again in the Afterlife.

Did you know that the idea of the lotus as a symbol of rebirth comes from the Ancient Egyptian sun-god and creator, Ra?

Ra is said to have appeared on a lotus and the Ancient Egyptians believed that Ra was swallowed every night by the sky goddess Nut, and was reborn every morning.

Find out more about Ra in the Gods & Goddesses section of the British Museum's Ancient Egypt microsite.