Tag: art

  • FIAR: Snowy Evening Math Photos

    FIAR: Snowy Evening Math Photos

    This post originally appeared on The HSBA Post on January 26, 2012.

    Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is a curious poem – challenging for grownups and particularly interesting for kids.

    I’m keen on looking for math in our FIAR books, but this time I’m thinking about doing some math in a new way. There’s math in poetry – tons of patterns with the iambic pentameter and such. But this picture book took a short poem (it’s only 16 lines) and added illustrations to give it that extra touch.

    Illustrations… hmm…

    There’s a classroom teacher who created a math assignment around photography. What a cool project for homeschool families; you can make it as strict or as loose as you want.

    He blogged all about the process, including the challenges and results,which makes modifying it for homeschool super easy and fun!

    Snowy Evening Math Photos

    If you have snow around, use the beautiful images in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening to inspire a photo field trip in the neighborhood. Use the assignment and rubric from the above links or just go with the flow. Encourage your children to look at the world with math eyes!

    I live in Houston, where it snows once every nine years. So I had to depend on Flickr for these examples.

    Abstract, curious, math-y!

    There’s some fun math in the angle of the snow, and also in the shadow in this pictures. It makes me wonder if the camera is tilted or if the snow is on a hill. Click on the image to get some math thoughts from the photographer.

    nail in snow
    by windiepink | Flickr.com | CC BY

    Mr. Rene’ Descartes would love this one!

    Lots of snow, but also some coordinate plane stuff here:

    by Jan Tik | Flickr.com | CC BY
    by Jan Tik | Flickr.com | CC BY

    Blocks and smiley faces!

    These look like snow covered blocks – big ones! Fancy math term: rectangular parallelepiped. (Get your two year old to say that – it’s SO cute!)

    by plizzba | Flickr.com | CC BY
    by plizzba | Flickr.com | CC BY

    Graphing animal tracks is fun!

    You know how you put a bunch of dots on a grid and then connect them? That’s graphing in math. That’s what these animal tracks look like! Incidentally, this photo is from my favorite Flickr person who has a great collection of math photos!

    by woodleywonderworks | Flickr.com | CC BY
    by woodleywonderworks | Flickr.com | CC BY

    What do your photos look like?

    What kinds of math do your kids see in the snow or other weather you might have? Share the links and their thoughts in the comments!

  • Improve Math Learning With Rubik’s Cube Art!

    Improve Math Learning With Rubik’s Cube Art!

    I stumbled upon the Paul Smith Gallery in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago and was completely drawn by the Rubikcubism art by Invader on the wall.

    It was a pixelated image that looked interesting from afar, but when you got close, there was a whole new surprise. It was made from 225 Rubik’s Cubes!

    I spent a good 30 minutes in the shop talking to David, the Paul Smith associate. So many questions came up, including:

    • How can you make an image with only six colors? (Rubik’s cube has six sides, thus only six colors.)
    • The price tag on the artwork was $22,000, how much money was spent in actual Rubik’s cubes?
    • Could I do something like this?
    • If I were to replicate it, could you tell the difference between the original and the fake?
    • What kind of math is involved in creating something like this?

    Can your kids do it?

    It might be fun. It could get expensive, though: at $10 a pop, and after sales tax, 225 Rubik’s Cubes come to about $2500.

    I don’t have this kind of money to drop on cubes, and I’m guessing that most homeschoolers don’t either. But for only $10 and the technology you already have around the house, you can let your child be a Rubikcubist!

    They sure can!

    If your children are inclined to give this a shot, buy them each a Rubik’s cube. Let them explore the number of sides, and the number of “pixels” on each side. If they don’t already know about how colors work together, they can either research or learn through experimentation.

    They can choose to use graph paper & colored pencils, Microsoft Excel, or a paintbrush program to map out what they want their image to look like.

    As they twist the Rubik’s Cube into each pattern, take a photo of it, or a color scan. Print it at full size and let them use the prints to create the final artwork.

    Making Rubikcubist artwork is math!

    Throughout the projects, explore the concepts of area and patterns. Also encourage them to think about color theory (of which I know squat, but your kids will be learning as they experiment).

    Questions to ask:

    • How many total “pixels” did you use?
    • How many total Rubik’s Cubes did you use?
    • If you were to make this “for real,” how much would it cost us in Rubik’s Cubes?
    • What else did you notice about the project regarding colors, patterns and area?

    Solving a Rubik’s Cube is math, too.

    By the way, the solution to a Rubik’s cube is mathematical. It’s actually part of mathematics called group theory. My office mate in grad school was able to solve a Rubik’s cube in about 20 minutes.

    I was never able to figure it out.

    Share your art!

    Put your child’s final artwork on Flickr.com or other photo service and post a link to it in the comments.

    Feature image is by Robin Iversen Rönnlund on Flickr.com, CC BY.

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