Math and Art Clay Snowmen

This tutorial below goes through my math and art lesson step-by-step for creating a clay snowman from a single lump of clay using very simple division. Students will see the pattern of "dividing into two even pieces." This is a great way for students to concretely experience the mathematical concept of division while creating an adorable little snowman. 

Art teachers: Use this lesson to help put STEAM in STEM. Download the ppt here.

Click here to see last year's snowman sculpture gallery.

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Math and Art Snowman Sculpture for Kindergarteners from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.

If you want to try this lesson with older students ask them to come up with the fraction that defines the pieces of clay as they work. The initial lump of clay at the beginning is called 1/1. Each time you divide the clay into two even pieces multiply the denominator by two. The snowman's "Large" is 1/2. "Medium" is 1/4. "Small" is 1/8. 
You can continue on until you get to the final little pieces (they  are 1/512).

A great book for supplementing this lesson is 
The Biggest Best Snowman
This book is story about a little person making a big impressive snowman while demonstrating how to create one out of snow. It reviews the three parts of a snowman:  Big Medium, and Small which I emphasize in the lesson above. 
I found this video of the story on youtube. 
You can watch it below.

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