Today’s craft item is coffee filters! Coffee filters are so versatile and cheap to use, so we use them often in our crafting adventures. Today, we also used them for some learning. We had been talking about symmetry and I decided to use coffee filters to demonstrate what I was trying to explain to my kids. Flips, turns, and slides can get SO confusing! Coffee filters make inexpensive tracing paper! So, we grabbed some out of the craft closet and got to work.
First, we divided a filter into fourths (by folding). While it was folded, we drew an arrow on it. The marker bled through all of the layers so the arrow could be seen on each side. When we opened the filter, we saw 4 arrows, each going a different way. We used a marker to highlight the folded lines (aka the lines of symmetry) and had a great discussion!
Since the filters were out, we had some fun drawing on them as well! We have found that if you fold the filters and spray some water on each side, markers can do some amazing things. My daughter loved trying out different patterns!
This one was our favorite. We added dots of each color to the folded, wet filter and when we opened it, it was beautiful! In fact, we both thought it looked kind of like an umbrella, so she grabbed a pipe cleaner, bent it, and voila! An umbrella!
Make sure to check out some other amazing ways to use coffee filters by clicking {HERE}.
[…] Teaching Momster shared a great post about symmetry with coffee filters! […]