#13 For All Ages

For All Ages

Grown-ups: As children play with the mirror book over days and weeks, observe how they make more and more accurate predictions of positions, angles, and shapes. Help children notice radial symmetry in nature: place the center of the mirror book over centers of live flowers, photos of starfish or radiolarians, or models of snowflakes and crystals.

Babies: Put toys or your fingers inside the opened mirror book. Move the mirrors or the objects to make simple “animations” and tell stories. Move the mirror book over a baby’s favorite picture book or family photos for funky kaleidoscope effects.

Toddlers and Young Kids: Help children experiment with drawing or sculpting inside the mirror book. Take turns posing simple puzzles – for example, “Can you make a square with one toothpick?”

Big Kids: Use one or more mirror books to design tiling patterns called tessellations: draw or make a fragment of the tiling inside the mirror book and observe the book taking it to infinity. Encourage your child to place or draw groups of objects inside the book – two shoes, three bears, four wheels – and observe what happens to the total number of objects and reflections when the angle between the “pages” of the book changes (multiplication tables).