Symmetrical Flowers - Mixing Art and Math

We decided to try out a symmetrical, Mother's Day, art project suggested on the Cyberchase site at pbskids.org.

The idea is to fold a thick piece of paper, or a thin piece of cardboard into quarters, and then unfold it, so it's divided into four sections.

Paint one quarter of a flower in the top left section (the folks at Cyberchase suggest painting one large petal).

Fold the paper in half vertically, pressing the sides together firmly.

Open the paper...

...and fold it in half horizontally, again pressing the sides together with some force.

Open the paper again, to reveal your flower.  At least, it's suppose to look like a flower.

We didn't get the best prints, though we did discover that poster paint works better than acrylic, as acrylic paint dries too fast, and it's hard to get the paper folded in time, making for incomplete pictures...

...and general outlines...

...work better than completely filled in pictures.

For real (and less messy) fun with symmetry, we recommend playing around with the free Symmetry Artist program at mathisfun.com....

...where you can create all kinds of designs.  It's great for flowers...

...that can be printed out and colored in...

...in plenty of time for Mother's Day.

It's great to be a homeschooler.