We ordered a geometry pack with the homeschool toy library.

There weren’t enough squares, can you spot the one she made?

They are quilts for a Silvanian family. Helena wanted to turn them into real quilts of course but that’s a LOT of cutting and sewing as well as a lot of space for error. So we came up with….

Instant quilts using potato prints… the potatoes later had the painted surfaces cut off and turned into a fried potato, silverbeet and bacon dish – apparently common in Tui (Helena’s invented place and language).

I took photos of her designs and to do the printing she had to recreate the designs looking at the photos.

Did we discuss the names for shapes, totally… without the names she couldn’t tell me which of the shapes she needed. Did we talk about the angles, yep later in the swing when we were having a conversation about triangles (it came up) and how many millions of triangles there are… how we’d have to classify them, equilateral etcetera. There were Figure It Out books in there with ideas which she liked looking at but not as much fun as inventing her own game. We’ll come back to the book….

After quilts there was this…

The round bit, made with cubes and pentagon prisms, is the great wall of China, the pyramids on the top are the pyramids in Eygpt and in middle is where she will put the Eiffel Tower from France. Who knew she knew about these places!! Geometry in action, building as one practical application.

That’s the pattern for the child’s quilt I’m making in front of my child purely because I like making them.

Helena’s finished ‘quilt’ isn’t good enough – it has over laps but don’t worry it is for under the high chair so the mouse baby will get food (plastic and fimo) all over it so it’s all OK, no crying!