easy mathart projects and activities

NEW YORK • TORONTO • LONDON • AUCKLAND • SYDNEY MEXICO CITY • NEW DELHI • HONG KONG B Y C ECILIA D INIO-DURKIN Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources Scholastic Inc. grants teachers permission to photocopy the activity and pattern pages from this book for classroom use. No other part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., 555 Broadway, New York, NY 10012. Front cover and interior design by Kathy Massaro Cover photos by Donnelly Marks Interior photographs by Donnelly Marks and Sal Principato Interior illustrations by Kate Flanagan with additional illustrations by James Graham Hale ISBN # 0-590-37896-1 Copyright © 1999 by Cecilia Dinio-Durkin All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. ’d very much like to acknowledge all the wonderful suggestions, encouragement, and ideas my editor, Deborah Schecter, gave me in writing this book, as well as my other Scholastic Professional Books. I Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲ C o n t e n t s Introduction 4 Tips for Using This Book 4 Display Ideas 5 Connections With the NCTM Standards 6 Number Sense Number Art Posters 7 Natural Number Sun-Catchers 11 Count-Up Birthday Candle Cards 13 New Year Countdown Crackers 16 Addition & Subtraction Paint-by-Number Pictures 19 Add-Up Family Portraits 22 Fractions Soapy Fraction Sculptures 25 Fraction Subtraction Pies 27 Geometry Snapshot Shape Frames 31 3-D Kiss-mas Ornaments 36 Measurement Heart-Filled Valentines 41 Pipe-Cleaner Pals 43 Time & Money Cuckoo Clocksicles 46 Tooth Fairy Money-Tree Wheels 50 Patterns & Relationships Harvest Corncob Patterns 54 Holiday Pattern Wreaths 58 Costume-Combo Flip Books 61 Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources ath is found in the most basic of art concepts. From geometric shapes to the patterns of colors—math is everywhere. And what better way to bring math skills and concepts to life for young children than with art! In Easy MathART Projects and Activities, children create wonderful art projects—all based on math skills that correlate with the standards recommended by the National Council of T eachers of Mathematics. (See Connections With the NCTM Standards chart, page 6.) Whether you’re making Count-Up Birthday Candle Cards, Harvest Corncob Patterns, or Heart-Filled Valentines, the activities and projects in this book will enable you to combine art with math lessons all year long. No matter the level of math or talent in art, every child in your class will learn—and produce beautiful and festive decorations and gifts at the same time! Each project focuses on a specific math skill or concept and includes a complete list of materials, grouping suggestions, step-by-step instructions, teaching tips, and ideas for seasonal or holiday tie-ins. You’ll also find reproducible patterns and worksheets, Variations—ideas for altering the basic projects, and More Math extension ideas. Book Gallery recommends books to share with your class that relate to the lesson’s math concept or holiday tie-in. I hope that you and your class enjoy these explorations in math and art. Who knows?— you may inspire a budding Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci—both great artists who used math in their work! — Cecilia Dinio-Durkin Tips for Using This Book ✿ Before you do a project with children, make it yourself. This will enable you to determine how much time you’ll need and what adaptations you may want to make. ✿ Provide lunch trays to help contain children’s work space. On trays, little pieces stay close by and spills can be easily wiped clean and dry. If a particular project involves several materials, hand them out as needed during the course of the project. ✿ Most of the projects in this book use everyday items that you probably already have in your kitchen or closet. Other materials can be found at most grocery or arts and crafts stores. Feel free to make substitutions or changes to any of the projects. ✿ Many of the activities suggest having children write or draw responses in a math journal. A math journal can be a looseleaf notebook or sheets of paper, folded and stapled together. Math entries can be as simple as recording an estimate before discovering the answer, or as complex as writing an explanation of a math concept or skill. You may suggest that children write or draw in their journals every day, once a week, or as each new concept or skill is learned—it’s up to you. No matter how you use them, journals are a valuable tool that display children’s progress and give you insights into their thinking. ✿ 4 M ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲ Introduction Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources ✿ Continue to reinforce concepts by using the projects in this book again and again. Alter a project’s seasonal connection and you’ll have a new lesson! (You’ll find suggestions for doing this in Variations.) Make a skill more challenging by adding more elements, and you’ll have a math extension. Keep children’s creative juices flowing, building their math skills as you build on these art projects. ✿ Celebrate the Math–Art connection by setting up an area or bulletin board to display children’s projects.This will help children take pride in their accomplishments and will provide you with an attractive and ever-evolving reference point for reviewing math concepts. Display Ideas To enhance some of the projects in this book, you may want to have your class make these simple and decorative frames. They are fun to make and let children explore geometric shapes. Craft-Stick Frames Glue craft sticks together to make frames in various geometric shapes, such as triangles, squares, and rectangles. The sticks can be painted, wrapped in ribbon or pipe cleaners, or decorated by gluing on beans, beads, buttons, tissue paper, or fabric. Paper-Plate Frames Cut out the center of a paper plate and use it as a frame. Color or decorate the rim, as described for the craft-stick frames. Acetate Accent Frames Sandwich a picture between two pieces of acetate, and seal the edges by gluing on ribbon or construction paper or using colored tape. You could also punch holes along the sides and give children yarn or ribbon to “sew” a frame together. Corrugated Cardboard Frames This frame is too difficult for children to make, but it is a great way to make large frames. Use a sharp knife to cut up old boxes. Peel away the outer layer of the cardboard to make a textured finish. Or leave the outer layer to paint, color with markers or crayons, or cover with fabric or contact paper. ✿ 5 Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources ✿ 6 Connections With the NCTM Standards Number Art Posters ❉❉❉❉ ❉ ❉ Natural Number Sun-Catchers ❉❉❉❉ ❉ ❉ ❉ Count-Up Birthday Candle Cards ❉❉❉❉ ❉ New Year Countdown Crackers ❉ ❉ ❉ ❉ ❉ ❉ ❉ ❉ Paint-by-Number Pictures ❉❉❉❉ ❉ Add-Up Family Portraits ❉❉❉❉ ❉❉❉ Soapy Fraction Sculptures ❉ ❉❉❉❉❉ ❉ ❉❉ Fraction Subtraction Pies ❉ ❉ ❉ ❉❉❉❉ ❉ Snapshot Shape Frames ❉❉❉❉ ❉ 3 -D Kiss-mas Ornaments ❉❉❉❉❉ ❉❉ Heart-Filled Valentines ❉❉❉❉❉❉❉ ❉ Pipe-Cleaner Pals ❉❉❉❉❉ ❉❉ ❉❉ Cuckoo Clocksicles ❉❉❉❉ ❉ ❉ ❉ Tooth Fairy Money-Tree Wheels ❉❉❉❉ ❉❉❉ ❉ ❉ Harvest Corncob Patterns ❉❉❉❉ ❉ Holiday Pattern Wreaths ❉ ❉❉❉ ❉ Costume-Combo Flip Books ❉ ❉ ❉❉ ❉ Mathematics as Problem Solving Mathematics as Communication Mathematics as Reasoning Mathematical Connections Estimation Number Sense and Numeration Whole Number Computation Geometry and Spatial Sense Statistics and Probability Fractions and Decimals Patterns and Relationships Concepts of Whole Number Operations Measurement Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲ Number Sense ✿ Number Art Poster, pages 9–10 ✿ scissors ✿ tape ✿ thin and thick markers, crayons, colored pencils 1 Begin by showing children examples of numbers and letters that have been designed in different ways in books, on packages, or on a computer. Talk with them about ways artists make numbers and letters look interesting and beautiful. Explain that artists do this by painting, drawing, or photographing them in different ways. Tell your class that they are going to be artists who design numbers. 2 Give each child copies of the Number Art Poster pages, tape, scissors, and markers, crayons, or colored pencils. 2 Have children cut out the poster pages along the heavy dotted lines and then line them up vertically and tape together, end to end. Tell children to fill in the numbers 1 to 10 on the poster. Encourage them to use the art materials to create different effects. 3 Ask children to create their own 1 to 10 number art in the blank columns on their poster. 3 Let children decorate the poster by coloring in the numbered boxes. Invite them to use different colors to make different patterns. They might decorate the empty spaces in the boxes with unusual shapes, squiggles, lines, dots, and so on. Display children’s posters on a Number Art Poster Display. 4 ✿ 7 N u m b e r A r t P o s t e r s These beautiful posters show off children’s number-writing skills. ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲ ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲ M a t e r i a l s For each child: Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲ Number Sense Instead of having each child decorate a page of numbers from 1 to 10, create a class mural. ✿ Assign each child a number between 1 and 10. Ask children to write their number on the paper and decorate it however they wish. ✿ Invite children to help you hang the numbers in order or in some other number pattern on a bulletin board. ✿ Expand the number posters beyond 10 as children learn to write more numbers. ✿ 8 GG aa ll ll ee rr yy BB oo oo kk ▲▲▲▲▲▲ To give children an example of creative graphic design in letters, refer to The Graphic Alphabet by David P elletier (Orchard Books, 1996). Invite children to use the ideas in this book to inspire them as they design their numbers. From one gnu to ten lizards, children count up critters in the colorful and delightful book Count by Denise Fleming (Henry Holt, 1992). In Feast for T en by Cathryn Falwell (Clarion, 1993), another lively counting book, young readers count to ten as they follow an African American family who go shopping and then prepare a meal. Variation ✿ ✿ Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources Number Art Poster Tape Here Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources Number Art Poster ✿ 10 Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources [...]... let them fill in the inside of the card: write a greeting, fill in the total number of candles, and sign it Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources Birthday Candle Card Pattern (Outside) 15 : Number Sense LLLLLLL ar Countdown Ye C ew r acke r s N Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources Children count to 10 as they... (Simon and Schuster, 1971) : The delightful picture book Bear in a Square by Stella Blackstone (Barefoot Books, 1998) invites young readers to search for squares, triangles, circles, and other shapes hidden within the playful illustrations on each page 33 : Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources Snapshot Shape Frame Patterns 34 : Easy MathArt Projects and Activities. .. Scholastic’s Math Power Magazine 28 : Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources Fraction Pie Pattern 29 : 6 6 6 LLLLLLLLLLLL 6 Where Did the Pie Go? 6 6 At 12:00 noon, Chef Jeff took his _ pie out of the oven It looked so pretty And it smelled so good! Chef Jeff put it on the windowsill to cool Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic... Paint-by-Number Addition 5 +4 _ 5+1= 9 +1 _ Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources 8+1= 4+6= 5 +5 _ 7+5= 6+6= 4 +2 _ 3 +3 _ 9 +3 _ 2 +4 _ 1+5= 8+4= 8 +2 _ 3 +6 _ 2+4= 7 +3 _ 7+2= If the answer is Color Key 20 : Color the space 6 9 10 12 Red Green Blue Yellow 6 +3 _ Paint-by-Number Subtraction 4 –1 _ Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic... water 4 Randomly hand out a measuring spoon to each team Some children 1 will get a 4 teaspoon, others a 1 teaspoon, and so on Ask children to 2 note the measurement on their spoon 25 : Fractions LLLLLLL Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources Ti p The soap’s consistency can vary from grainy and cracked to smooth, according to how vigorously it is mixed and how... birthday ^ LLLLLL ^ ^ Invite children to make the card more colorful and festive, using crayons, markers, paint, or glitter and glue I hope that birthday number is a great one! k Boo G alle r y ^ Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources Let children use white glue to attach the candy candles to the top of the cake When the glue is completely dry, let them... recipes for making their play dough and display them with their soap sculptures 4 Size of Spoon Number of Spoonfuls Peter and Kim 1 4 11 Dylan and Matt 1 4 10 Ellen and Mi-Won 1 2 5 Adam and Michelle 1 2 4 Kathy and Wendy 1 2 José and Philip 1 2 Team Children will enjoy using their Soapy Fraction Sculptures at cleanup time or wrapping them up as handy gifts for family members and friends Va r i a t i o n... pictures that they can cut out, stamps, stickers, candy, and so on Ask children to open the crackers and identify the shape found inside Statistics Crackers Have children pick a number between 1 and 10 and then fill the tube with that number of items Children can then exchange crackers and open them Say the numbers 1 to 10 aloud, and ask children to raise their hands when you call out the number represented... fold down one side, and glue to the back of the frame When the glue is dry, the frame will stand upright on this triangle base k Boo G alle r y LLLLLL Review familiar shapes with Brown Rabbit’s Shape Book by Alan Baker (Kingfisher, 1994) Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources : : To make a hanger, punch a hole at the top of the frame and tie string, yarn,... sculptures dry to a brilliant white Using markers, children can fill in the face and add other features A piece of yarn or ribbon makes a dandy scarf! 26 : Fractions ction ra S F es u b t r a c t i on Pi LLLLLLL Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources Children make a fraction pie and use it to model the events in a story LLLLLLLLLLLLL M aterials LLLLLLLLLLLLLLL . go shopping and then prepare a meal. Variation ✿ ✿ Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources Number Art Poster Tape Here Easy MathArt Projects and Activities. everywhere. And what better way to bring math skills and concepts to life for young children than with art! In Easy MathART Projects and Activities, children create wonderful art projects all based. ath! More M ath! Easy MathArt Projects and Activities © Dinio-Durkin, Scholastic Teaching Resources ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲ Number Sense ✿ Birthday Candle Card patterns, pages 14–15 ✿ small, wrapped rolls of candy such