We have fallen in love with Magna-Tiles at our house. Seriously, the boys have been playing with them daily for hours on end!
While magnetic tiles on their own are fun to explore, sometimes I like to enhance their play by pairing them with something else. In this case, I decided to add a mirror as a way to explore reflections and symmetry.
So, if you're looking for a simple symmetry activity, then try exploring symmetry with Magna-Tiles and a mirror. What will your kids create? (If you know my kids, especially J, you'll probably be able to quickly guess what he makes!)
What You'll Need for this Simple Symmetry Activity
Here's what you'll need to recreate this symmetry activity at home or in your classroom:
- Magnetic tiles - We used tiles from our set of 100 translucent colored Magna-Tiles.
- Small mirror - I found the ones we use at the dollar store.
You can set up a simple invitation of shapes in front of the mirror to show how we can explore symmetry. I opted for this route and set up a star shape with the Magna-Tiles. His first reaction was, "Oh, it's a star! Cool!" Alternatively, you could simply set out the materials to see what your child does with the materials on their own. Here's the star set up:
Exploring Symmetry with Magna-Tiles
After seeing my star invitation, J started putting some different Magna-Tiles next to the mirror. He then leaned the mirror back and forth to see how the reflections changed. You can see he started with just a few simple triangle shapes to explore with.
Then, in typical J fashion, he started creating numbers out of the Magna-Tiles (hello, hypernumeracy!). Here he is with the number two and its reflection as the number five. J was curious about why the two turned into a five in the mirror's reflection so we had a little discussion about the science behind it all.
J continued to make more numbers, such as the number seven (or could even be a one) pictured below.
This house or camel shaped design is actually the number 10.
It's amazing how J can turn literally everything he sees and plays with into numbers. I now know that's part of his hypernumeracy. What a kid, I tell you!
Overall, he had a blast exploring symmetry with Magna-Tiles with this simple mirror activity, even if he mostly explored numbers. But, again, numbers are his thing so I'm not surprised it led to more number play.
