Monday, November 5, 2012

Exploring fractals with playeum's big draw

I had the great opportunity to brainstorm and facilitate my first ever community art. Here is husband helping to arrange the different triangles into a Sierpinski configuration, in an effort to bridge Science, Math and Art 
The idea and the inspirations behind the art activity. We were there at 9.30, having set up things the previous day. Playeum had a couple of volunteers assigned to us. Anjali and Sophia did the first fractals, along with the first kids who walked in.

We had two stations wet up, one with black construction paper, where the kids could explore the use of sidewalk paint . Kids who walked in at the opportune moment also were able to watch and assist in the home made sidewalk paint making. The recipe is pretty simple, add cornstarch and water and mix until the just beyond gloop stage. Then add food coloring.


A few feet away was the crayon resist fabric fractals. Again, the fabric dye was food coloring diluted with water and with a little vinegar added in to help the color become brighter.
Husband here is mixing the colors up as we were starting.
The first fractals are in place
And people get creative with their fractals
The effort begins to scale up.
The station was especially popular with the really young kids as the materials used were made of kitchen stuff and therefore safe. This little kid stayed here for a couple of hours while her sister went roaming around the rest of the activities. When she finished, she was covered in sidewalk paint and having the time of her life.
And when you deal with very small children, you dont get perfect fractals.
But nonetheless beautiful

After we did the first fractal, with 81 triangles, we let the participants arrange as they wished. and interesting arrangements came up
This boy used crayon resist to make a boat on fabric. I am surprrised that his crayon resisted the food coloring so well


4 comments:

  1. This is a great idea! I expect my son would really enjoy learning about fractals so I may need to try this on a smaller scale. Thanks for sharing with Afterschool Linkup!

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  2. WOW! This looks like so much fun! I would love for you to add this and any other of your posts to my weekly Mom's Library Link-Up.
    http://heymommychocolatemilk.blogspot.com/2012/11/co-hosting-moms-library-4-for-me.html

    Thanks and Be Blessed,
    Julie

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  3. How pretty! Great job putting together a wonderful group project.

    Thanks for linking to Science Sunday!

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  4. I loved when you showed how to do this in another post. These are really beautiful and would look wonderful as a mural on the wall. Stopping by from Mom's Library. Thanks for sharing!

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For your little notes and ideas