Picture This: Art & Geometry: Celebrating “The Perfect Square”

 

Art & Geometry: Celebrating “The Perfect Square”
Kdg-5th grade program done inside the library and as an afterschool outreach

 

A square always has 4 equal sides and 4 equal angles, but with a bit of imagination, it can become anything!   We shared books on art and creativity, made pictures by cutting up a square and also explored  the square with origami, tangrams, and mathematical puzzles.   Here is a list of some of the items we showed and shared in case you want to check them out from the library.  (All are in the Picture Book Section under their author’s last name unless they have a Dewey Decimal Number listed.)

 

Read: Perfect Square – Hall plus a selection of other  books celebrating art, creativity, and different ways of looking at things:

Bear’s Picture – D.B. Johnson

Elephants Can Paint Too (599.67 ARN) – non-fiction (check out the elephant-created floral paintings – they’re amazing!)

Dot – Peter Reynolds (also his Ish)

Changes– Anthony Browne

I Ain’t a-Gonna Paint No More – Karen Beaumont

• Math Riddles from Math Appeal and Math for All Seasons -- Greg Tang

 

• Our activity stations included:

 

• Create Your Own “Perfect Square” – cut up a square and reassemble (artwork inspired by our featured book Perfect Square by Michael Hall (tissue paper squares, 8x11 paper to mount on, scissors, gluesticks, hole punches)
• Math puzzles -- pages photocopied from Shape Shuffle 793.73 WOR (toothpicks, buttons), additional math puzzle books of Greg Tang (mentioned above), The Everything  Kids’ Math Puzzles Book (510 CLE), Let’s Investigate Shape Patterns (516.15  SMO), Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature (512.72 CAM)  (toothpicks or craftsticks, buttons or coins), Shape and Pattern (516 CLE), Math Fun with Tricky Lines and Shapes (793.74 WYL)
• Tangrams printouts from http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/tangram_puzzles.htm
• Origami (lots of titles in 745.54), kids might also enjoy Fold Me a Poem (811.54 GEO) (origami YODA http://origamiyoda.wordpress.com/folding-your-own-origami-yoda-other-star-wars-papercraft/)
• Books on Optical Illusions and Changing Pictures – books including Geometric Optical Illusions (152.148 SEC), Imagine a Night – Rob Gonsalves, Imagine a Day – Rob Gonsalves, Imagine a Time – Rob Gonsalves, Duck! Rabbit! – Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Palazzo Inverso – D.B. Johnson, Here a Face, There a Face – Arlene Alda
• Additional Art & Creativity books: Look! Look! Look! – Nancy Wallace, What’s the Big Idea? Activities & Adventures in Abstract Art (709.04 RAI), How Artists Use Shape (701.8 FLU), I Spy Shapes  in Art – Mickelthwait, The Dot and the Line – Norton Juster, Dinner at Magritte’s – Michael Garland, What is this? – Antje Damm, How are you Peeling – Saxton Freymann

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