Shapes, symmetry and long dark afternoons
Winter maths
The end of term, when nobody wants a worksheet and everybody still needs the practice. Symmetry is the one topic that survives a classroom that has stopped concentrating, because it looks like art and is entirely geometry.
Fold and cut a six-fold snowflake
A paper snowflake has six-fold symmetry because ice does, and folding one is a genuine construction: fold in half, then into thirds, which is the hard bit and worth doing properly rather than by eye. Cut, open, and count the lines of symmetry. Then the real question — what would you have to cut to make one with FIVE lines instead of six, and why does the folding get so much harder? Real snowflakes are six-fold for a reason, and no amount of cutting makes a five-fold one from a folded circle.
You need: Paper, scissors, and the patience for the thirds fold
What to use alongside it
- Geoboard Build a shape, then build its mirror
- Geometry and shapes — beginner worksheet Naming what came out of the folding
- Angles — beginner worksheet Six folds means sixty degrees, which is where the thirds come from
- Patterns and sequences — beginner worksheet Repeating patterns, which is what symmetry is
- Nim Two players, two minutes, no equipment — for the last afternoon