The other day a giant dragonfly landed on Jack’s bicycle pedal. It stayed there even after we all touched his wings. Jack’s eyes were huge. To me, it felt like a good opportunity to teach him about symmetry.
Google’s definition of symmetry seemed a little wordy for kids. So here’s…
My definition of symmetry:
If you cut something in half, both sides look exactly the same.
And of course I thought an illustration could do an even better job of explaining the concept. Feel free to download it for your kids!
Download this free coloring page!
Download this symmetry art activity as a PDF.
For smart phones and tablets: Visit this page on your device. Click the jpeg link above to download, then import it into your favorite drawing app…for a load of digital fun!
We folded the paper along the dotted lines, then used a light table to trace the other side of the dragonfly. If you don’t have a light table you can tape the folded paper to a window and let the light shine through.
Bonus activity:
After tracing the other side, we painted one side then folded the paper onto the wet paint. This part was even more exciting than tracing. We also printed the illustration again and only did paint (no tracing), they loved that too…it was borderline magic to them 🙂
After doing this exercise you could ask your kid if they can think of any other objects that have symmetry. You can also let them do their own symmetry activity with a blank piece of paper.