Charlie the Australian shepherd
is staying at our house for two weeks,
so we take her to the sled run
at Park Bellevue
where she eagerly chases
the toboggan down
and up the hill.
Photographic Journal
New Tessellation
Akiva wakes early and works with pattern blocks before breakfast.
He continues after lunch, around nap time.
Mid afternoon, he puts the finishing touches on his new tessellation.
Later, we will take out the large triangles and replace them with small triangles.
Piet Mondrain
When I was in 4th grade, our art teacher told us to pick a work of art by a famous artist and copy it.
The girl next to me chose the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.
“Are you sure you want to copy that?” I asked.
“I like it,” she said. I looked at the image askance. I knew of its fame. I also knew, from previous joint projects, that although Mimi may have had good taste in art, she had a particularly difficult time with both gross and fine motor skills, which resulted in poor letter formation, poor scissors usage, and generally being picked last in gym. I didn’t try to explain to her why she might not want to attempt the Mona Lisa.
I, on the other hand, learned to read and write early. I knew my letters were lovely. I could cut a perfect curve with scissors. In addition, I had great skill with a ruler. This was to my benefit, as I had suddenly become a huge fan of Piet Mondrain. Straight lines! Bold colors! Nothing simpler. I knew my limits.
Now, 42 years later, my own child is in 4th grade, learning on his own about the great artist, Piet Mondrain. It came about this way.
Akiva was building Lego cars inspired by an old pamphlet he found. The wheels of the cars fit perfectly into Matchbox-size race car tracks. “Build one that will smash to bits when it crashes, and we can film it in slow motion,” I suggested. A few minutes later he returned with what has become my favorite of all his cars: Piet.
As for Mimi and the Mona Lisa? The paint on her board blurred to a muddy green-brown mingled with tears.
“I should have done what you did,” she sobbed.
I said nothing.
I did not know what to say.
Two Good Friends
When I was little, I really liked the picture book Two Good Friends, by Judy Dalton. I admired how the two very different friends appreciated their very different qualities. I related to Bear. Perhaps most children do. Iris, however, is a Duck. She gets it from Martin. I married a Duck! Akiva is a Bear. All dogs are Bears.
You can find a good reading of this short, sweet and messy book on YouTube.
Kitchen Project, day 1
We begin renovation on the kitchen. The window in the kitchen has had no architrave (this is the fancy word for the finishing wood that goes inside a door or window), and the walls have been messily ugly and painted with brush-wipings for the past 6 years.
First comes removal of extant objects.
The tile countertop is not removable from the cupboard units,
so Martin cuts neatly between the tiles to preserve the countertop for the future owner.
Within a few minutes of posting all the cupboards free on marketplace,
seven people inquire. Inquiries continue to pour in.
Science Lecture
Brandon lectures from the front of the classroom.
I sit by the computer and interrupt him constantly to ask questions and interject when I am not taking photographs.
In our class we have two teachers: myself (real, so far as I’m concerned) and Brandon (virtual, IMO, but he probably perceives himself as real); two students: Iris and Akiva; and two pets: Brook the Dog and Hammy the Hamster. Hammy belongs to the neighbors and has a different name when she’s at home. At our house, she’s Hammy, and like everyone else, she is homeschooled.
Ninety Degrees
While building with pattern blocks and focusing on radial symmetry, one generally finds it quite easy to build forms in the regular-hexagon family. This is because most of the blocks are fractions of an equilateral hexagon. The squares and beige rhombus pieces are not fractions of the hexagon and can sometimes be a little trickier to work with. One reason I own so many pattern blocks is because I was wanting to work with square radial symmetry, but we kept running out of squares. Off to Ebay! (NOTE: I tried ordering new Hand2Mind blocks, but the sides that were supposed to be one inch long on both the blue and beige rhombuses were cut short, making them unusable.) Having more squares lets us build bigger square-base patterns. One neat thing about the 21st Century Pattern Blocks is that they, too, have pieces that would be useful in making square symmetry. Unfortunately, as noted two days ago, they don’t have enough of them. Further ranting about that issue won’t get me anywhere, so I’ll leave off.
Here you can get a tantalizing peek at what one might create in square symmetry using 21st Century Pattern Blocks.
If only…
Snowflake Patterns
While studying causes of the symmetry and structure in snowflakes, Akiva and I built a snowflake out of pattern blocks.
The non-standard shapes here (light blue quadrilaterals, pink right triangles; medium and large green equilateral triangles) are from the 21st Century Pattern Blocks and Upscale Pattern Blocks sets respectively, produced by Math for Love. Unfortunately, the sets always include about 50% old-style pattern blocks consisting of dark blue diamonds, red trapezoids, and yellow hexagons of which I literally have hundreds (thanks, Mom & Ebay). Dan Finkel (founder & director of operations) doesn’t plan on selling the new styles solo any time in the near future despite my pestering, and purchasing six boxes of each just to get enough of the new styles is out of my math manipulatives budget, so we’re out of luck. I’m particularly annoyed because I LOVE the new shapes, but 50% old shapes is just cocaine cut with talcum powder and I’m not falling for that old trick!
To learn to build your own custom snowflakes from real water, watch this video featuring Dr. Ken Libbrecht, world expert on snowflakes, designer of custom snowflakes, snowflake consultant for the movie Frozen, and snowflake photographer extraordinaire.
For to view snowflakes with greater beauty than can be made from pattern blocks of any sort, visit Ken Libberecht’s website, Snow Crystals.