Snowflakes, in July?? (1512)

Abby's first attempt

Abby's Snowflake

My 6 year old daughter asked for help to make snowflakes over the 4^th of July weekend when it was 90 degrees outside! We were on a camping trip and had a little downtime this past weekend, and my artistic daughter wanted to make something fun. We got out her paper and markers and decided to make some snowflakes. I started showing her how the paper needed to be folded from a square, then into a triangle and then another small triangle. She has made them before of course, but it seemed to be a good math lesson for this camping trip. My 4-year-old son was interested too, but he couldn’t quite get the cutting down for such a small area with his little fingers. The first attempt on her own ended up in a piece of paper crumbled into many pieces because she had cut through the edges too far. She soon got the hang of how deep she could cut in, which edges corresponded to the outside and which were the middle of the snowflake. The symmetry when it is done is what she loves the most! She practiced making tiny slits, diamonds, circles and even hearts while cutting through the layers.

Here is a quick video on tips to make the perfect snowflake.

It is never too early to introduce children to the names of shapes and where we find them in our every day life. There also has been many times where we are sitting down with the Magna Doodle and draw shapes and pictures. My son likes to say, “Build a house Mommy”! Obviously in our brains we usually start with the outside square or rectangle, then the triangle for a roof, then the square windows, rectangle vertical door, circle doorknob and any other details we might be imagining at the time. By introducing kids to these images early in life, it puts it in their head to be on the lookout for them. For instance, a sailboat on the lake looks like it has triangles that make up the sail reaching up high above the rest of the boat. If a teacher can get the kids involved with fun projects and they are much more willing to spend the time on learning about math!