Look at your foot. Now look at your arm. You won’t believe this, but your foot is about the same length as your forearm from wrist to elbow crease. That can’t be, can it? Hold up your foot to your forearm to see!
This was one of many number secrets of nature that kids learned at Crazy 8s. In the Fibonacci series, each number is the sum of the 2 numbers before it: 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 and so on… turns out the bones in your finger have lengths in those same ratios. See for yourself here. And a snail spirals out along the areas of squares those sizes, as does the hair on top of your head!
Kids then explored another pattern: the triangle numbers, also known as the Cheerleaders Stacked in a Human Pyramid Hoping the Top Person Won’t Fall Off numbers.
The kids stacked cups (as opposed to themselves) and found that only some numbers like 6 or 10 can work. 7 cheerleaders can’t make a perfect pyramid!
There are plenty more patterns for you and your kids to explore.
- Stack other items to make triangle towers. Creamer cups at the diner work great, especially when the food is taking forever to come out. Or try any matching wooden blocks, soda cans, marshmallows – really any identical solid objects with a flat top and bottom.
- If you have lots of identical balls handy (marbles, ping pong balls, a bucket of baseballs, etc.), you can lay out the balls in a packed triangle on the table, place books or shoes to hold them in place and then stack upward to make a chunky pyramid! Each new layer will be a triangle, too. Then compare to the apples, peppers and oranges stacked at the supermarket.
- For the artistically inclined, print out this Fibonacci square printout and draw your own spiral!
For another math-y pattern from nature, try this easy Flower Petal pattern:
- Grab 2 pencils or pens, a paper clip, and a sheet of blank paper.
- Hold down one end of the clip with one pencil on the paper. Insert the other pencil in the other end and swing around to make a circle.
- Then place your center pencil anywhere on that circle, and draw a new overlapping circle.
- You can then place your center pencil on any intersection of 2 circles to draw new ones. Watch your petal pattern explode across the paper!
