New Quilts

Earlier in the year we created a sea star quilt to help us practice counting by 5s. Last week, as part of our current geometry unit, each student made a mini quilt. 

First, each student designed four different 2-colored 9-square quilt blocks. 

Next, each chose one design and copied it four times. This involved careful arranging and gluing.

Then each student cut out his/her four copies. Here they are drying.

With our own four copies in front of us, we each tried out several different ways we might arrange them into a four-block mini quilt. We found that some of the quilt block designs were such that no matter how they were turned, the resulting mini quilt was the same! These type of blocks had rotational symmetry. 

Some of us had quilt blocks that, when we experimented with rotating them 90 degrees/a quarter turn or 180 degrees/a half turn, it made for some very different resulting designs. We each chose our favorite way to arrange our own mini quilt and then named them whimsically based on what they looked like. Here is the pretty display in our hallway.