I made this video / blog post because I remember wanting to do origami in class but being unsure how to connect it to content. Until recent years – teaching math through art was pretty foreign to me. But mostly with the help of Dave Casey I have been able to open up that portion of my curriculum and my students are better off because of it.
Origami lessons can be almost whatever you want them to be. With each fold you can step back and ask questions, and take observations of the resulting geometry. There are lots of bisectors, scaling of shapes, isosceles right triangles, trapezoids, kites, squares, and on and on and on. Take this video as just one approach out of many.
As a rule I tend to ask the most questions during the first few folds and then pick up the speed as the folds get to the finish – but that’s not a rule or anything. I also go back and forth on whether to have them unfold and observe the folding pattern that results.
This year I spent 35 minutes on this lesson.
Here’s the folding diagram for the heart – drawn by Dave:
The Extension:
Have students make a rectangle that is similar to 8.5″ by 11″ and then fold a heart with that rectangle. Have them record the ratio and comment on the area differences.
The Goods:
One response to “Origami Heart – A Geometry Lesson”