Lesson Plans

Exploring Turns

http://illuminations.nctm.org/LessonDetail.aspx?ID=L310

A lesson plan for Grades 3–4 Visual Arts Education and Mathematics

Provider: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

In this lesson, the fourth of an eight-part unit from Illuminations titled “Paper Quilts,” students explore the geometric transformation of rotation. They create a design and then, using turns, make a four-part paper “mini-quilt” with that design as the basis. While the formal term is “rotation,” the more informal “turn” is used at this grade band. The experience focuses students' attention on the changes the geometric transformations make in a student-designed quilt square.

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

Visual Arts Education (2001)

Grade 3

  • Goal 1: The learner will develop critical and creative thinking skills and perceptual awareness necessary for understanding and producing art.
  • Goal 2: The learner will develop skills necessary for understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes.
    • Objective 2.01: Expands control and manipulation of the media and tools which may include the following:
      • Photography - sun prints
      • Drawing - chalk, fine and broad markers, colored pencils, creates a variety of lines with tip, point and side, computer and software.
      • Cut paper - papers, found objects, fibers, glue, sharp-edged scissors, curling, scoring and stapling, cutting a variety of single and multiple shapes.
      • 3-D - paper mache, small hand tools.
      • Printmaking - cardboard
      • Painting - liquid acrylics, large and small brushes, computer and software.
      • Ceramic - coil construction, compound pinch and slab, addition, smoothing, self-created stamps.
      • Fibers - Knotting, small hand looms for fibers.

Grade 4

  • Goal 2: The learner will develop skills necessary for understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes.
    • Objective 2.02: Use additional art media, techniques and processes which may include:
      • Fibers - stitchery, a variety of fiber weaving techniques, felting and quilting
      • Cut paper - complex symmetrical folding and cutting;
      • Sculpture - experiments with varied tools including small hand tools.
  • Goal 3: The learner will organize the components of a work into a cohesive whole through knowledge of organizational principles of design and art elements.
    • Objective 3.04: Exercise flexibility when approaching a problem-solving situation.

Mathematics (2004)

Grade 3

  • Goal 3: Geometry - The learner will recognize and use basic geometric properties of two- and three-dimensional figures.
    • Objective 3.01: Use appropriate vocabulary to compare, describe, and classify two- and three-dimensional figures.

Grade 4

  • Goal 3: Geometry - The learner will recognize and use geometric properties and relationships.
    • Objective 3.03: Identify, predict, and describe the results of transformations of plane figures.
      • Reflections.
      • Translations.
      • Rotations.