Snowflake Symmetry

We got a new microscope in the summer and around November, we saw some beautiful photographs of snowflakes.  I've also been telling the kids that real snowflakes have six-point symmetry, which they, of course, wanted to see for themselves.  I planned (without saying anything to anyone else) that at the first snowfall, we should bring our microscope outside and take a look.



The first snowfall of the year happened a week or two before Christmas.  I was tired from running around to rehearsals and concerts and parties.  I figured, we can wait until the morning.  Then, I thought, "You know what?  It will probably snow again." 

It never did.  Now, I'm thinking about getting the garden ready for spring.

Look Mom!  I can SEE the six-point symmetry.  She has excellent sight.

Scaling Tangrams

BatBoy loves tangrams and tangram puzzles.  Over the years though, our sets have a few pieces.  When it was suggested that was play with tangrams as part of Chinese New Year celebrations, it seemed like a good excuse to make a new set.  SpiderGirl also wanted to make a set for herself.

Enchanted Learning has a page on tangrams and how to make them.  They do it by folding.  Since we have graph paper, though, it seemed like a good time to introduce scaling diagrams.  We scaled the template on the website by a factor of 4.  The kids did their own multiplication. 

Then they glued the graph paper onto cardstock and cut out their new tangrams!  They made some zodiac animals off the Enchanted Learning page and did some puzzles from Fun O Rama.

Place Value and Bases Other Than 10

Our family loves Penrose, the Mathematical Cat.  Here, one story about numbers in base 2 inspired explorations of number bases in general.  These snapshots show BatBoy using counters to translate numbers between base 10 and other bases, while SpiderGirl looks on and gives input as she is sewing.

10100 in base 2 is 20 in base 10.

Setting up to work in base 3.