A few years ago I had a lesson selected by the New York State Education
Department for publication in its resource guide for a lesson that "best meets the
Standards". It was also placed on their website. It's no longer on the
website, however, it is a lesson that combines art and math.
I had found a resource book, published by Dover Publications in New York,
that had patterns of many sided polygons. I cut out the patterns, enlarged
them, and my fourth graders traced and folded them on oaktag. Next, they
transformed the shape into a "real" or imaginary animal with pipe cleaners, pom-poms,
googly eyes, yarn, etc. Lastly, everyone named their animals. The name had to
include the shape of the polygon-for example, one girl had made a "Pyramouse"
from a three sided pyramid shape.
Now that I think of it, it was one of the lessons, with photos I sent to The
Lab School in Washington, D.C. for the weekend with Robert Rauschenberg, which
I was so lucky to win. Anyway, to adapt to high school students, you could
have the kids actually measure and make their own forms. This lesson "gave me
a lot of mileage"-LOL- and my even students won first place in their age
group when they entered it in a contest at the Math Museum on Long Island. Now I
hope someone out there can use it as well!
Susan on Long Island
