Monday, March 14, 2022

The Beauty in Symmetry

When you split an image down the middle, and both sides match or are a mirror image of each other, we call it symmetry in art. This is how we explain symmetry to first grade students. Symmetry is used in artworks to make the composition more pleasing. Human brains actually strive to see symmetry as it represents order and helps us make sense of the world around us.
 
 First graders learn about symmetry and play a symmetry guessing game, where they have to guess if the pictures shown on the board are symmetrical or not. They also play a symmetry drawing game with a partner where student A draws something on one side of the paper, and student B has to match the drawing on the other side of the paper to create symmetry. First grade students practice drawing symmetry on their own. They also practice cutting symmetry by folding their paper in half and cutting through both sides of the paper at once. Lastly. first graders practice using paint to create symmetry by adding paint to one side of their picture and smashing it on the other side so the same paint splat shape is on each side. 

After all of this symmetry practice, first grade students learn about insects and arachnids, for a symmetry bug project. Students drew half of a bug on one side of their paper, including the head, thorax, and abdomen, and the antenna or wings if their bugs have them. Since we only drew half of the bug, students drew half the number of legs. So if they did an insect, they drew three legs, and if they drew an arachnid then they drew 4 legs. The first graders then learned how to print their half bug pencil drawing to the other side of the paper by rubbing on the back of the paper until the pencil drawing makes a ghost imprint on the other side. Once they completed this step, they could color or paint their symmetrical bugs. The last step was to symmetrically cut out the bugs and glue them onto a colored paper background. 


Progress photos of 1st grade symmetry bugs:




 




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