One out of the three days a week is devoted to the arts, which is program that Jessie and I are in charge of. To say that planning lessons for this program has been challenging would be an understatement. I think math teachers and arts teachers alike are aware of the connection between math and art, and point to artists like M.C. Escher as proof of this, but beyond that, we have a lot of trouble planning lessons that will really demonstrate math concepts in a creative way.
It's been a struggle, for Jessie especially, who has harbored a lifelong fear/aversion to math-related things. But the math teachers at the elementary/middle school we're working with gave us the list of subject areas that the program is aimed at covering, and we've been able to pick a few and identified some art projects that will demonstrate them. We've only had one class so far (the past two weeks have been snowed out), but it went well in the sense that a few kids were really into it, some maintained mild but steady interest, and none outright refused to do the activity or acted up at all.
The first activity I planned was, admittedly, not the most amazing project in the world, but none of us knew how the day was going to go, so it was kind of a test run. It was about polygons, which was one of the standards for the program. We started the day with an active game of The Big Wind Blows, which has become one of my favorite ways to begin a workshop. Everyone sits in a circle in a chair, with one less chair than there are people. The extra person stands in the middle of the circle and says, “The big wind blows if _______”, the blank being a fact about themselves that might apply to other people in the circle. Like, “The big wind blows if you have a brother.” The people it applies to have to get up and quickly find another chair. If you're the one who couldn't find a chair in time, it's your turn to say “The big wind blows.” Both students and teachers love this game, they can't help it. It's fun and it gets people to say personal things about themselves that you might not know about the person who sits next to you in English class. Also, students love hearing random facts about their teachers' personal lives.
We played that, then one of the math teachers gave a review of polygons while Jessie and I set up materials. I then talked about polygons in art, and showed some pictures of Native American quilts, and also some drawings by M.C. Escher (it's so easy to use his work, which kills me because he's not exactly my favorite artist, aesthetically). I asked kids to identify polygons in the artwork. I showed this picture and asked some questions about it:
What kinds of shapes are at the bottom of the picture? Are they polygons or not?
What is happening to those shapes as the picture moves up? Are the shapes becoming polgyons?
What is happening to them further up?
What I wanted them to see was that the image starts with two-dimensional, simple forms and gradually the shapes become more complex and three-dimensional. The only part of the picture that has polygons is the middle.
We then drew five unique polygons of our own, using rulers. We decorated them and labeled them as one of the following, based on the number of sides:
- triangle
- quadrilateral
- pentagon
- hexagon
- heptagon
- octagon
- nonagon
- decagon
- undecagon
- dodecagon
Then we punched a hole of them, tied them on fishing line and made them into a mobile. A very simple project overall, but it managed to sustain their interest, and gave us an idea of how well our future projects could work.
I liked that she figured out that letters and hearts can be made into polygons.
I wish I could show Jessie and the studen't expressions, but I'll just say that they are pointing to his mobile in a very excited manner.
We have a pretty cool Chuck Close-inspired project planned, where we take pictures of students' faces and print them out. The students will have to measure various parts of their face and scale them up using math, and draw a bigger picture of their face with the same proportions.
If any blog readers have some examples of artwork that is easy to link to Middle School-level math concepts, PLEASE let me know.
