Exploring body symmetry

Lately mirrors have become prominent part of exploring provocations. The image reflecting back at each child leads to many interesting questions. Why the human body looks the way it does? What features make us look different, the same? This lead us to do a group body symmetry, what makes bodies the same?

After we warmed up with songs that got our bodies moving, we began by each looking in a mirror. After discussing that we have different sizes, shapes and colors, W said “we all have hands and feet”.  How many do we have? TU said “two hands” and C said, “two feet”. We all agreed we have two, one or many body parts. If we divide ourselves in half (we put a hand up to our noses), what do we see on each side of our body? Are there any body parts do we have only 2 of? Are there parts on us that we have only one of? We started to count all the body parts from the top and discovered that many body parts come in two. There are also some parts of us that only come in one. “Why do we have the one eye on each side of our body” I said.  We are born to look the same on each side.

Do we have body parts that have more then 2? We then counted our fingers and our toes. We have five fingers on one hand and five fingers on the other and we have 5 toes on one foot and 5 toes on the other. Is each side the same? We all agreed yes. Is that the same as our eyes? Are they the same if you split yourself in the middle?

We have just been talking about symmetry. Symmetry is when something looks the same on each side. No one seemed to know understand we looked at shapes. First we put our hands in front of us. Are hands symmetrical? "Yes!" said M. "Why?" I asked. "They both have five fingers" said W.

I took out the pattern blocks and started to put both sides together. Each time someone would say no or yes if they were symmetrical.

Can we make a painting that is symmetrical. We all folded our paper in half and I told everyone to just paint one side. When everyone was finished we folded the back over to sandwich the painted side. “What do you think will happen when we open up the paper?” I said. “It will be the same”, said M.

As I showed how to open the paper with the paint side up everyone’s face light up as they saw what happened. We made each side the same. Kind of like us.