Columbus Day Math Craft

I worked a quick Columbus Day craft (from Evan-Moor's Teacher File Box) into the younger girls' math lesson today.

To start things off, I presented the girls with two pieces of blue construction paper, one piece of brown, and one piece of white, three craft sticks, and the usual assortment of scissors, glue, pencils, crayons, and tape as per Evan-Moor's instructions.


They cut triangles (about 1 inch high) from one of the blue pieces of paper, rolling them around pencils...


...to create waves.


Then, they took the white and brown sheets of paper, and started folding and cutting them in half - this is where the math part comes in...


...until they had divided the brown sheet into fourths, and the white sheet into eighths.


They set aside 6/8 of the white sheet, and 2/4 of the brown, keeping 2 brown quarters, and 2 white eighths.


They folded one of the brown sheets and one of the white sheets in half, cutting the remaining white and brown sheet in half first, and then folding the resulting four sheets in half again...


...giving us three brown ship pieces, one big and two smaller, and three white sail pieces, one big and two smaller.


The girls cut small half circles, off center on the folded edge of the ships.



I folded the bottom edges of the ships out, so they would stand.


And, the girls decorated the sails - using a good deal of artistic license.


Then, they glued them closed around one end of a craft stick...


...taping the other end into the ships, on one side.


Finally, they glued the ships and the waves to the second piece of blue paper.

It wasn't until they were all done, that I realized the Nina and the Pinta seem to be going in the opposite direction from the Santa Maria. Apparently, the sailors had given up on sighting land, and were beginning a mutiny.

Hopefully, they'll spot one of our pumpkins soon, and realize they are in the New World.



It's great to be a homeschooler.