So it is New Year’s eve…and we don’t have party hats at the Children’s Museum of Houston! How can we solve this problem? Well, obviously we could go buy some hats from a party store, but that would take time and money. Besides, why spend money on something cheap that someone else made when you can make it yourself using things already in your house!
Of course, we need something besides just materials. We need know-how. We need…math! Yes, that’s right, math. It isn’t just for adding and subtracting; math is also shapes and rotation. Math includes symmetry! So we’re going to use symmetry (and measurement) to cut out the shapes we need to assemble our hats!
What You Need:
- Wrapping paper, as festive as you want
- Scissors
- Ruler
- Pen/Pencil
- Stapler
What to Do:
- Cut out a 16” x 24” piece of wrapping paper
- Lay it on the table with the color side up in landscape
- Fold it in half left-to-right (hamburger fold)
- Fold it in half again, this time bottom-to-top
- Fold the top left corner to the bottom edge, creating a triangle
- Measure 7½ inches from the corner along the slant and bottom and mark
- Draw an arc between the two marks and cut along the arc
- Open up paper to the halfway point (roughly a half circle)
- From the midpoint on the bottom, measure 4 inches along each of the three creases and cut
- Finish unfolding and repeat step 9 for the two uncut creases
- Begin top by repeating steps 1-5
- Fold the top layer of the triangle back up to the slant
- Measure 4 inches from the corner along slant and bottom and mark
- Measure 5 inches from the corner along the middle line and mark
- Connect the three points and cut out diamond shape
- Unfold completely
- Lay the two shapes on top of each other color side out with the smaller one on top
- Staple the points of the stars to the points of the flaps
What’s Happening?
When you fold paper more than once and make a cut, you are most likely creating rotational symmetry. In biology, we call it radial symmetry, like you would find in flowers, starfish, octopi, snowflakes, etc. Basically, it means that if you turn a shape around a central point, the same parts of the shape appear over and over.
So, if you follow the same basic folds each time, but make your cuts different, you’ll get different shapes, but all with rotational symmetry. So create your own special shapes to make your party hat unique to you.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
Special thanks to our friends at Region’s Bank for making our O Wow Moments possible!
*This activity is based on the Instructable “Cool Way to Make a Paper Hat”
