WHOOSH. You might have thrown paper airplanes in your lifetime, but once you throw our four-pointed origami star, you’ll never turn back.
In Shooting Stars kids learned the art of origami and folded 2 pieces of paper that they connected to make this fast-whirling toy. In doing so they learned a key point about symmetry: The two pieces they folded were NOT interchangeable! They were mirror images.
The kids also befriended a 45-45-90 triangle, where one angle is a nice right triangle, and the other two angles are equal (as are the sides opposite them). This shape shows up over and over in real life, in skills ranging from carpentry and house-building to video game design and highway layout.
We can also use these triangles in the ancient Chinese puzzle tangrams. You match the outline of a picture using 7 specific triangles and squares. Click here to print your own tangrams and match the puzzles!
