Scissor Stories: Tales of Transformation

This whole activity was inspired by Yelena's blog post about the symmetry and cut paper stories she told and made for her son.  It was perhaps also inspired in the moment by a memory of reading the book The Greedy Triangle.  In the wonderful spirit of good ideas converging and diverging, I respectfully present to you the following:

Title: Scissor & Paper Stories in Three Acts

The Scene:  Very small karate studio in a Boys & Girls Club

The Context:  Summer version of Math in Your Feet programming

The Characters: 30 excited, wiggly seven and eight year olds who like to dance but who needed a story to help calm down and focus before we could start.

The Barest Bones of an Idea:  Scissors meet origami paper plus impromptu dialogue. (Meaning, I wung the narrative.  Yelena's stories are much more beautiful.)
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CHAPTER ONE
Me: Here, let me show you this square.  He's a little discontented.  He likes being a square...sort of.  But, truly?  He's bored of being the same shape day in and day out.  No matter how you turn him, [turning it so the corners are like a compass rose] he's still a square.  He's got a front [showing the colored side of the origami paper] and a back [flipping it over to show the white side] and he's very thin [showing the edge].  He's thinking he'd like to be a bit thicker so he decides to fold himself in half.  Oh my gosh, now he's a...

The Masses: ...rectangle! [Yes, it's easy to identify the shape, but I got the sense when I made the fold that it was a real surprise to them...]

Me: Well, that's okay with him but now he's having second thoughts.  Maybe he'd like to turn back into a square?  So he decides to fold himself in half again!  Now he's four layers thick and he is really enjoying the fact that he's not going to blow away in the next gust of wind.  [Pulling out the scissors.] 

Wow, it's really hot outside today.  You know where it's really cool?  At the top of a mountain. [Cutting a triangle out of the paper.]  But when you climb a mountain you have to work really, really hard, step by step.  [Speaking dramatically, while cutting steps up the side of the triangle.] And when you get to the top of a mountain, you're so excited to be there that you shout HOORAY and the sound echoes all over the place. 

Me: Now the square finally feels happy.  I think he likes his changes.  Let's open him up and see what he looks like...

Masses: Woah...

Me:  Would you look at that!  He's got a rhombus inside him.  Who knew?

Me:  Let's see what the square looks like when we open him all the way up...

Masses:  Ooooooooooo....!  A mask!  A monster!

Me: And look...if I turn it upside down and it looks the same!
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CHAPTER TWO
Me:  Here's another square.  He's a bit discontented too.  He saw how the other square changed himself into something amazing so he thinks he wants to try.  Except, this time, when he folds himself in half, instead of folding edge to edge, he's going to fold corner to corner.  Oh my gosh, now he's a... [holding up the paper while I fold]

Masses: ...triangle!

Me: No doubt.  And, look!  He's now two layers thick.  Oh no, now he's saying that he'd like to be a little bit thicker.  What if he folds himself in half again?  Now he's an even smaller triangle and he's also now four layers thick.  What's that?  Oh, now he says he'd like to be a bit smaller.  Okay, so he folds in half again and now he's now eight layers thick. [Holding it up.]

Me (holding scissors and cutting while I talk):  Well.  Look at that.  The square really likes being a triangle but he's finding it hard to walk down the hall.  Two of his corners are manageable, but that extra one sticking out is causing him some trouble -- he keeps poking his friends.  He's thinking he might like to smooth out those corners. [Cutting away at the point where all the folds meet.]  I think he'd like a few more curves as well.  [Cutting, cutting.]  But he'd still like some triangles on the inside.  [Holding the cut triangle up.]  What does he look like now?

Masses: A dog!

Me: Yeah, he does, sort of, doesn't he?  Maybe a terrier.  Now the square has really changed!  Let's open him up and see what he looks like...

Masses:  OOOOOOHHHH!  Two dogs!  Or a moose with antlers!

Me: And let's open up the square again...

Masses: [Bouncing up and down on their knees, squeeling.]  A....   A...

Me: And now all the way open...

Masses: Ahhhh...
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CHAPTER THREE
Me: And here is one more discontented square.  He wants to be a triangle just like the other square.  I can't blame him. [Folding.]  [The whole folding procedure was covered in my earlier Transformation post.]

But what's this?  Being a triangle feels weird to him.  You know, one less corner and all.  So, he's deciding to turn himself back into a square...

Masses: Oooooohhhh.... [This particular fold was really a revelation to them.]

Never mind, he likes the thought of being a small triangle. [Last fold.] Let's see what happens when he gives himself some curves and cuts...

Masses: [Applause and shouts of 'Can I have that?!?']
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Suspense.  Drama.  Intrigue.  These stories had it all and I was thrilled to provide a moment of awe and wonder with these simple tools.  Funny thing was, the next day it was old news. But, in the moment? The kids' reactions while I was folding and cutting and scraping up a story to tell with it?  That was a pure magic math moment.