Lines of Symmetry

After sorting all the Board Games, the next task has been to declutter my Art Room and the Math & Science Room, where things tend to pile up.

I was extremely fortunate a few months ago to receive a very large donation of math curriculum materials from the estate of Dr. Ann Karmos. She held a PhD in Educational Psychology and she spent 33 years at SIU teaching Math Teacher Preparation in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

During my Spring Break I finally had time to sort through all of the bins. They are a treasure trove. Two things for Symmetry were totally new to me. One was Mirror Cards (I have both the inital 1965 trial edition that they sent to a few teachers to get feedback and the 1967 edition that was published and distributed more broadly). The child holds up a mirror at different angles and sees which designs can be replicated (have a line of symmetry) and which cannot. Very cool.

She also had a massive stash of wax paper sheets and at first I couldn't figure out why. We use them in Art, underneath our gelatin printing plates, but I didn't know why a math teacher would have them. Then I found an example.

Draw the design and then fold it to find the line of symmetry. Because it's wax paper you can see through it to the design on the other side. So clever!

Thank you to Ms. Marion for recommending our school for this donation. It's amazing. I will bring duplicate materials (including duplicate Mirror Cards, Cuisenaire rods, and more) to the April meeting of Homeschool Without Borders for anyone who would like them for their homeschool math stash.

Fun with Board Games

Today is the first day of my Spring Break and I'm using it to sort through all the board games we haven't played yet this year. I'm making three piles: give away for sure, keep for sure, and test.

Overall, I'm looking to see which ones go in the Board Game closet, which are antique or sentimental or I want to just be for me and Zac, which ones I want to give away, and which games I should take apart but keep the pieces. I have a big stash of extra board games pieces for when we do "Invent Your Own Board Game," which we usually do once a year.

I will also often keep the pieces but change the rules of a board game to make it work better for a classroom setting. Some games are just duds and they don't make them anymore. That's the case with FitzIt by Gamewright (it's also the case sometimes that GREAT games go out of print, and we have some good ones here which can no longer be found).

I really like the pieces to FitzIt. I just didn't like the game play. So here's how we changed it to be The Noun Game. I would use this when we are learning about concrete vs. abstract nouns.

Decide in advance how many rounds you would like to play. Children will take turns being the person who chooses the noun. One noun per round.

To start the round every player is dealt three facedown mystery cards from the deck. It's important that you don't know what they say.

Then the person states a concrete noun. In this example, I said "T. rex."

Each child in the circle (including the person who chooses the noun for that round) turns over and reads aloud the three mystery cards in front of them. If the card describes a T. rex, it is a keeper. If not, set that card aside. The reading aloud is often very funny, as the descriptive cards may be a perfect fit or may have nothing at all to do with the noun in question.

T. rex

In this example, my cards said

Usually unwanted - yes

Existed over 100 years ago - yes

Made with wood - no

So I have two "keepers" that match the noun. Zac then turned over and read his cards. One of his cards said "has wings" which gave us a good laugh. Another said "would explode in a microwave." That was hilarious!

All the cards that match the noun for that round go in the center of the circle. Whoever had the most "keepers" that round wins them all!

(As with other games of this type, if there's a tie those cards would remain in the center of the circle and the person who wins the next round would get the whole kitty.)

The cards you win at the end of the round stay by you, because you'll get a point for each, and the cards that weren't a fit can go back in the box. Pass out three facedown cards to each person and the next noun is announced. At the end of all the rounds, the person with the most cards wins!

This is a just-for-fun game, with the emphasis being on learning what a concrete noun is and practicing reading aloud. There's no strategy involved whatsoever. It's silly and we loved it!

UPDATE:
I played this game with the Bongos when we came back from the break. And it was a hit. Here are some of the things I noticed:

- It works better for the person who chose the noun to not draw cards that round and instead act as the Judge if there are any disputes. For example, is a tree "fluid?" Do you count the sap?

- We did five facedown cards per person so that we didn't have tied rounds as often.

- Have each person flip their stack only when it's their turn to read them aloud. Otherwise children will be reading their own cards and not listening to others and they'll miss the jokes.

- Put your cards that are keepers face up, and the cards that aren't a fit face down, as you sort through them. This makes it easy to keep track.

- This game actually teaches a lot about adverbs too! "Often," "usually," "mostly," "not," etc. These words change the meaning of the phrase and require children to think carefully.

- Lots of giggles! They were in fits for "is considered romantic" for Broccoli! This would be a good icebreaker game for a group that doesn't know each other well yet.

Sometimes we have board games without the original rules. Here are some rules I've been looking up lately:

Nim (PDF)

Towers of Hanoi (PDF)

"Lucky Catch" by Gamewright

"Fairy Queen" by eeBoo

Twixt by 3M

Quartett: Tree, Flower, Fruit, Seed by Senta Stein

Monopoly (PDF)
note that you can buy a Speed Die separately at Amazon or eBay

how to play Backgammon (video)

how to play Backgammon (PDF)
includes a very interesting probability table

Art History - Dame Zaha Hadid

In my Art History 2023-2024 blog post, I decided March would be Dame Zaha Hadid. Here are some resources and my planning notes:

Zaha Hadid
1950 - 2016

also

The Legend of the Persian Carpet by Tomie dePaola

Building Zaha: The Story of Architect Zaha Hadid by Victoria Tentler-Krylov

Architecture for Kids: Skill-Building Activities for Future Architects by Mark Moreno & Seina Moreno

K-12 activities from Center for Architecture

lesson plans from Art History Kids, June 2023

lesson plans from National Portrait Gallery UK

Under 5s / Dens
6-8 years / Imaginary Buildings
9-11 years / Paper Towns
12 years+ / Through the Window

"Architecture is an art form that should provoke emotions and create a sense of wonder."

“The paintings have only ever been ways of exploring architecture. I don’t see them as art.”

"Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works."

"Architecture is not just about creating buildings, it's about creating experiences."

"If I wanted to do clothes or if I wanted to make a building or design a choreography, you are able to do that - they are all under a similar kind of design umbrella."

---

week of Feb 26

Sat

read The World Is Not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid by Jeanette Winter and look at pictures of her work

do "Nature Sketches" activity from Art History Kids, p.26
(use plain pencils only, look at shape and not color, create designs for clothing/furniture/buildings based on your nature sketches)

week of Mar 4

Mon

read The Legend of the Persian Carpet by Tomie dePaola, look at shapes in Grimm's 1001 Nights Building Blocks and Nautilus Puzzle

Sat

read The Town of Turtle by Michelle Cuevas

do Paper Towns activity from National Portrait Gallery
(work in pairs; give each team a roll of calculator paper, a tape dispenser, two pairs of scissors, and a little plastic turtle; if desired, our collection of wooden animals can also come to visit turtle)

week of Mar 18

Wed

read Building Zaha: The Story of Architect Zaha Hadid by Victoria Tentler-Krylov

do "Architecture + Landscape" activity from Art History Kids, p.27

Thu

SWI investigation - is < architect > related to < detective >?
no, but it's related to < tectonic >, < textile >, and < tissue >

do "Shaky Foundation" activity from Architecture for Kids, p.5
(I would NOT do this activity again. I spent the entire time walking around repeating the instructions! There were too many steps that they had to follow and they just wanted to explore the materials.)

Sat

our focus today is translating one thing into something else!

Candle Flame ---> Shoes
Dance ---> Drawing ---> Dance
Rooftop ---> Hat

light a candle, look at picture of shoes inspired by the shape and movement of flames

Flames Shoe (United Nude x Zaha Hadid - 2015) from French Vogue

do Drawing Movement activity from MoMA
(work with a partner to translate their dance into pencil drawings, then on Monday we will have different students translate the pencil drawings back into dance)

quote: "I have always appreciated those who dare to experiment with materials and proportions."

read The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater

do Rooftop Hats activity from Center for Architecture

week of Mar 25

Mon

dance drawings made by Saturday's class!

Wed

look at the relationship between Zaha Hadid's concept paintings and the buildings that resulted from them

How Architecture Is Born: 8 Abstract Paintings by Zaha Hadid and the Buildings They Inspired - architizer.com

Cardiff Bay Opera House
concept paintings, scale model

Vitra Fire Station
concept paintings, finished building

Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art
concept paintings, finished building

MAXXI: Museum of XXI Century Arts
concept paintings, finished building


do "Abstract Architecture Part 1" activity from Art History Kids, p.29

because we had done so many drawings of buildings, it was hard for them to make an abstract painting instead of going right into drawing the specific building they wanted to make tomorrow; I think it would work better if they just did an abstract painting without instructions from me and then later translated that painting into a 3-D design

supply list:
Stockmar Opaque Colour Box Set
Faber-Castell Gelatos Original and Dolce II
Derwent Inktense Watercolor Pencils
watercolor paper, painting boards, brushes, rinsewater jars

Thu

do "Abstract Architecture Part 2" activity from Art History Kids, p.30

supply list:
large brown paper grocery bags
foldable templates for small gift boxes, printed on cardstock
additional construction paper for details
rulers, scissors, tape, staplers, colored pencils

Make a Pop-Up Building From a Paper Bag

another option: old cereal boxes!
https://www.centerforarchitecture.org/k-12/resources/how-to-transform-an-empty-box-into-a-house/


The children often found that their ideas kept changing as they adapted their paintings into actual buildings! A nice book to read to go along with the idea of changing aspects of your building as you find they don't work for you is William's House by Ginger Howard.

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Happy Leap Day!

Thursday Feb 29 was an exciting and busy day.

#1 - The children presented their Early Human reports to parents and grandparents during Living History Day. It was a wonderful event!

#2 - We had snack (including tasting all the Hunter-Gatherer foods) and played a round of Poetry for Neandertals.

#3 - We recalled the biography that we read Wednesday for our final figure from the Harlem Renaissance (Jump at the Sun: The True Life Tale of Unstoppable Storycatcher Zora Neale Hurston by Alicia D. Williams) and how much Zora loved storytelling even as a young child. We discussed the figures she would create out of household objects to be characters in her stories, including Reverend Door-Knob, Miss Corn-Shuck, and Mr. Sweet Smell.

Mr. Sweet Smell was carved out of a bar of "do-not-touch Pears soap," and I happen to have a vintage bar of Pears soap with its unmistakable scent. The original recipe for Pears soap is no longer being made. After all the children got to smell the wonderful soap, they did their own soap carving project!

#4 - At lunch we read a Brer Rabbit story. Jump at the Sun referred to these stories many times, but the children were completely unfamiliar with them. We read an early reader version called All Stuck Up and looked at a jar of Brer Rabbit molasses.

The children asked to hear more folktales -- which Zora Neale Hurston collected as her final anthropology report in college -- so our next lunchtime read aloud book will be Jump on Over! The Adventures of Brer Rabbit and His Family retold by Van Dyke Parks and illustrated by Barry Moser.

#5 - After recess, we did an SWI lesson on the < -ling > suffix. See more below!

#6 - The children all went outside to check on the results of their Archaeology Experiment, started on the first day of our Early Humans block.

#7 - Finally, we ended the day with sewing. Everyone finished up their Story Quilts for our Art History study of Faith Ringgold. Children who needed more time took their sewing boxes home with all the supplies they would need.

So, what is the < -ling > suffix?

To begin this lesson, which was inspired by an email I got a few days ago from Fiona Hamilton, we read Lucky Ducklings: A True Rescue Story by Eva Moore. Then I explained to the class that a person born on Leap Day is called a < leapling >. < -ling > is a little-used suffix, so we spent some time looking for other words that have it, like < duckling >.

Here's their list. Can you think of others? Leave a comment!

leapling

duckling

darling

yearling

sapling

stripling

nestling

fledgeling

gosling

starling

darkling

changeling

This morning I woke up and thought, < spiderling >!

It is so interesting to look at the word sums of these words. We realized that < darling > is built on dear and < gosling > is built on goose. I had to look up < starling > and < darkling > (a kind of beetle) to see if they were really part of this pattern, and they are!

We also looked at all of the words we had compiled and tried to see if the suffix < -ling > brings an additional sense to the word. They hypothesized that it means smaller or younger. Yes! It's a diminutive suffix.

This suffix is now obsolete but we could still create words with it and have people understand them, which is what is so fun about morphemes (word parts). We recalled the story we read at lunch on Wednesday (The Secret Cave: Discovering Lascaux by Emily Arnold McCully). If I told you I found a < caveling >, would you know that I meant a teeny tiny cave?

The children also came up with some words that did NOT have the < - ling > suffix. In these words, the < l > is actually part of the base word. I drew a box around the base so that they could see it more clearly.

I introduced Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) in January as part of the "Story of English" block that the older children did. It really helps children with their reading -- as well as their spelling -- to understand how words are built!

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!