Try This Fun STEAM Activity!

This fun STEAM activity has many advanced skills.  Students won’t be aware they are doing critical thinking, creativity, and symmetry.  A teacher friend showed me how students can write their name on one side of a paper and rub the paper so that the other side of the paper will show a reflection of the name that was written.  Then students turn their names into a monster or creature.  This is fun to do around October, but could be done at any time.  I actually did this in November with no complaints. 🙂

Here is an example of a name monster by a girl with the name Anna.  You will have to turn your head sideways to see the name written, since the name was written on the horizontal crease on the paper.  Details are following.

To make a name monster, students must do the following:

1. Turn the paper horizontally and fold the paper on the crease.

2.Next, they must write their name in pencil (or you can use graphite sticks for darker pencil lines–thanks to the art teacher for these).

3. Then students can do either of the following depending on how difficult you want to make the task.

**You can have them go over their name more darkly with the pencil and then fold the paper back over onto the other side and rub the paper with a sharpie lid or some other hard object so that the graphite from the pencil wears off.  This is the easier option if you can find a hard lid for the name to rub off on the other side.

**You can have children draw the reflection of the name on the other side to teach symmetry.  This requires some critical thinking because students have to visualize and write their letters in a flipped direction. (more difficult option).

4.Once students have traced their name on the other side of the paper, they can add features to their name making a creature.  This will take some creativity on the students’ part.  They will have to imagine some of the letters in their name to be like shoes, eyes, arms, or the like.  Every feature that students add MUST be symmetrical.

5.Next have the students color their creature.

Below is the name Liza.

At the end of this lesson I like to have students share their work so other students can appreciate the work their peers did.  Also, I have students trace their name with their finger so other students can see the work they have done.  Have students point out the features they added to their creature as well, such as if they added eyeballs, a tongue, shoes etc.  For extra creativity, have students name their creature.

This would make a great beginning of year task when everyone is learning names or a great Halloween activity!