Pi Day craft

March 14, 2016

It's Pi Day (you know, 3/14, the first three numbers in pi?) It is also the first Monday after the dratted time change, which makes for tired cranky children. It also makes for a tired mother. These things are not a good combination. (An aside... I grew up in Arizona, a state which wisely does not observe the crazy time-change plan. I thought it was weird my freshman year in college and I still think it's weird. Why? Why put us through this twice a year?)

We hadn't done a real art project in quite some time, so in my pre-fully caffeinated stupor, I ran across this post dealing with math art, and I knew this was what we were going to be doing. (My art supply hoarding pays off once again. I already had some graph paper [though I needed to print out some bigger grid for younger types], markers, watercolors, and watercolor paper.)

I pretty much copied the instructions whole sale. First you graph the beginning digits of pi which then become skyscrapers in your skyline. If you have smaller grid paper, you have more buildings, and larger grid paper gives you less. After you have your skyline all colored in, you cut it out, paint a watercolor sky on your watercolor paper, glue on the skyline, and voila... you have Pi City.

The best part about this project? It was completely variable to allow for all of my disparate abilities. Everyone made a completed project. This is no small feat around here these days.

Here is R. working on her skyline. She would choose the color, I would outline each box, and then she would color it in. This was right in the middle of her abilities and she did a great job.

H. was able to do hers entirely herself!! The only thing that briefly baffled her was cutting out the skyline without cutting off the important parts. I outlined the cutting lines in black sharpie and she was set.

Y. and TM

Everyone else was pretty self-sufficient. I did cut out the four youngests' because it was a lot of finicky cutting, but that was all they needed help with.

Here are the final projects.

D. - You can't tell, but this is about 1 1/2 inches square. Sometimes D. has difficulties with perfectionism and a smaller scale was far less stressful for him. I actually love how the small scale works on this.

G. - G. really likes to write her name on everything. That actually says, "Pi City" and not "Pigigi City," though that is cute, too. The bigger news is that everything is facing the correct direction.

K. - What was interesting about K's was his use of perspective. Do you see those dark buildings in the back? He added those behind his pi buildings because he wanted a more varied skyline.

Y. - I can tell she has had limited exposure to painting. The other interesting thing is that she is not yet sure of herself as a creator of original work. she had made a unique city, then after looking around at other people's changed hers to match theirs. You'll notice G.'s influence in the sky writing, and once you see TM's (below), you'll understand why she blacked in all the buildings. I find it so interesting to watch a child develop their own sense of self from a more impoverished background.

L. - My always colorful one. She added smoke coming off the buildings.

H. - This is probably her most careful piece of artwork yet. It seems as though now that she has picked up how things are supposed to work, she has entered the extreme rule following stage. But, she also seems to have left the copy everything everyone does phase. She has a good eye; I can't wait to see what happens once she figures out her own style.

This is R.'s. It actually amazes me considering the level of coloring she was doing in China. I can't wait till I share tomorrow's post with you about her other big milestone.