Shape Equation: Triangles

A build can take a day, with the put-away phase allowed to be on another day. Children's block areas can be organized to allow individual projects to stay up overnight or longer.

First lesson on perspective

Just seven pieces are needed: four 6" sticks, one point, one circle tile, and one knitted ball. I'd have a child first practice using the sticks to make triangles, with the prompt that the edge of the felt is the bottom edge of the triangle. Then, I'd say, can you find the secret way to put the three red pieces in a line, so that you can make a road? Let the child experiment for a while, confer with other children, make it a class challenge, etc.  Don't give them the answer, they have to discover it in order to be able to see it.

It might be a developmental stage for drawing, and come later than kindergarten age, but I wonder. This seems like a good puzzle - a brain-teaser.

Inviting the children to draw what they build, with each trial placement, would probably help them advance toward being able to see the perspective for themselves, so that they could begin to explore drawing with one thing far away, and another up close.

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Lady Seated on Diving Board, Listening

She is sitting over her pool, wearing shorts and a camp shirt. The water in her pool is made of sound waves. She's looking out into space.

It uses:  100% of the available white sticks, 1" through 4"
                  100% of the available white points.

Inspired by a picture on Pinterest.

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Two Figures Vocabulary Template

This construction was modeled from a wallpaper sample I cut out from a magazine.

Building it changed it into two people, as labeled. I can also see using this as a cartoon, the kind where the pictures stay the same and the text changes. 

It also could be one person looking at an object - for example, that Young Girl is looking in a department store window display.

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Illustration of a poem

This isn't the whole Steinberg piece - just some of the lines. I referred to my copy of 'Steinberg At The New Yorker' for the inspiration.
Very fun and satisfying way to explore rhythms and repetition in patterns. Could make a pattern and then think of several different sounds to go with it, or could listen for everyday sounds and illustrate them with the blocks.

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Using the blocks as a stage/soapbox. Quickest movie I've made.

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Balloon Ride: from Art to Math

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Selfies

This is me, about age 8. Like the song said, " We were born on the New Frontier, we were born on the New Frontier, we were born on the New Frontier!"

I am just a few months short of hearing the Beatles for the first time. Jessica, just wait until you hear them in stereo, which won't be until years later!

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The Three Little Pigs

I'm making a movie of The Three Little Pigs. 

Here's the set for Act 2's opening: the youngest pig, Red, in the red house, Orange in the house of sticks, and Yellow in his brick house.

​Tally of times 8S pieces fell: 2

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This is an illustration of the poem "Size Equals Distance" by Maggie Smith (www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/july-2015-maggie-smith.html). 

I cut up a photograph of an earlier construction, and used it for the sun, the picnic cloth, and the food. Quite exhilarated to have thought of this technique, which relates to the poem's discussion of scale, and looking forward to doing more pieces like this.

Jet trail and flying plane: white 80%, purple 20%
Taxi-ing aircraft with passengers waving: purple 67%, misc 32%
Tree: green 57%, black 26%, misc 17%

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Evening Social

Here's a street of townhouses. People are outside enjoying the grassy common area, in the cool of the evening.

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Exotic Wallpaper

Math questions to ask about a student construction: for youngest, "can you find any things which go together?", for older, "can you see any sets of 2's? Of 5's? How many sets of 5's can you find?", for even older, "What's your estimate of the total length of sticks in inches? Measure, and see whether your estimate was for too few or too many."
Everybody can make any kind of picture, and answer questions such as these. The math happens very naturally as the blocks get put away, and it's easier to study more complex relationships as the students get more sophisticated.

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   We Know The Way, by Opetaia Foa'i & Lin Manuel Miranda

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For my husband Luis' birthday today, we watched Moana. Although I have yet to make it to Hawaii, I've loved the Polynesian islands since I was very little, when I heard the song 'Bali Hai', on Captain Kangaroo. It was accompanied by a shadow puppet show of a canoe on the water, slowly passing an island. The romance of that affected me enormously. Above is my picture, drawn in 1964, age 5, the inspiration along with the movie,  for this construction.

update, 1 month later: Really in love with the Moana. Listening to the soundtrack and re-watching. Imagining a fan-fic of the grandmother's life, and the story from the grandmother's POV...

updated update, a week shy of 2 months late: oh it's still all Moana, y'all

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A City Apartment with Patio

The Pattern Languages of this piece are:
(105) South-Facing Outdoors
(107) Wings of Light
(21) Four-story Limit
(118) Roof Garden
(111) Half-Hidden Garden

You've noticed I'm using a lot of imagination as well as the blocks, to fit all those patterns into this build.  Shout-out to a tv show from 1961, roughly, called The Gentle Giant. All I remember is the hand setting out the doll house furniture, and I loved it. The influence is clear!

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Circle Game

Here's a P.E. activity. The adults, here represented as ducks, can vary the options for moving around the circle by inviting the children to link arms and skip, hop, stomp, etc, as well as the classic chase they are familiar with from the original Duck, Duck version.
I like that there's no ambiguity about where the players will  end up sitting down again - that it doesn't hinge on who runs faster, in other words. I think preschoolers will enjoy that more than the worry over being beaten out by a faster or older child.
I also like the structure of using the second ball to organize when player's turns will happen - so that no one worries about players being left out and never chosen. 
Finally, players holding the un-stringed ball could choose to leave the game, either by giving their ball to a new person who wants to play, or by giving it to one of the adults.

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Illustration of a Nursery Rhyme

Rub a Dub Dub

Rub a dub dub
Three men in a tub
And how do you think they got there?
The butcher, the baker
The candle-stick maker
They all jumped out of a rotten potato
Twas enough to make a man
​Stare



Analysis:
Box 5B, 100% for boat and men, and waves.
Box 8S, six 3" and twenty-eight 1" for crests of waves.
Box 9, three different colors for differentiation of individuals.

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Village Square

People swimming in the lake, hanging out on the roof gardens, watching their children play in the grass, and selling food from kiosks.

http://www.steve-rogers-photography.com/

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Froebel constructions, puppets, quilts, felt.  Simple movie-making!

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Cube & Plane

The cube from Box 2 is overlaid with Box 7 pieces, to illustrate the concept of a plane. 

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Column Space

The wonderful book, A Pattern Language,  describes how to build towns and buildings which are timelessly alive, because they meet the social needs of people.  Pattern 226 describes columns which have useful space around them, where people feel comfortable sitting. 

​My version of Column Space uses Box 5. 

Update: All the floor lamps in the house are newly expressing themselves as column places: little tables arise around them to hold tissues, sewing etc, drinks, and books. All of these misc items now seem like citizens hanging out at a cafe...

​http://www.steve-rogers-photography.com/

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Gundum Peony Megazord

I used a copyright free design as the inspiration for Gundum Peony Megazord. A simple tally can be made by preschool children. 

1. For children who aren't yet writing easily, adults supply labels for the shapes.  Children fill in the number used of each type. 
2. Later, children can copy the names and make their own tally sheet.
   
3. Trace the shapes on a gridded piece of paper to make a personal coloring book page. All ages enjoy coloring!

http://www.steve-rogers-photography.com/

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Pattern Language #5                          Lace of Country Streets

Children can be asked to estimate which blocks they need for a planned construction, and allowed to make adjustments without shame. For Lace of Country Streets, I was using the illustration from A Pattern Language as my design inspiration. I estimated needing twelve 3" sticks from 8S, and adjusted by adding one more 3" and one 1".  Further math for older children could include calculating percentages of the available blue 3" sticks used, and percentages of available Box 9 points (how much housing is provided here, for the total population of Box 9 points?)

Box 9 points represent people living in single-family homes, or in small apartment complexes.
Public transportation runs along the roads.