The following blog post is by Peggy Healy Stearns, Lead Software Designer, FabMaker Studio.Celebrate International Dot Day with a POPPING DOT that inspires both creativity and motivating math explorations!Let kids use FabMaker Studio’s ready-made Popups tool to create a dot popup. Cut on the Silhouette or with scissors. Or forget tech altogether and do the entire activity by hand. Popups can be a single dot. Or a bunch of dots. You can make lines of dots, dots in dots, dots inside rectangles or triangles. Nobody said your dot has to stand (or pop) alone, so be creative. And not all dots are perfectly round. They can be dot-ish.
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
To make your DOT POP: Open the Popups tool on the top menu bar. Drag an Oval popup into the workspace. Drag to resize or move. That’s it – you just made a dot popup! If you want, add more dots or different popup elements like those in the examples above. In FabMaker Studio, you can preview your popup in 3D view in the lower right. Drag the slider to open and close it; rotate it to view from different angles. Send your design to the Silhouette – or print and cut by hand. For hand cutting, be sure to select Print Cut & Fold Lines in Print Preview.
What to do with a DOT that POPS?Well, first of all, you’ll want to embellish it. Start with white paper or card stock. Then imagine what that plain ole dot could be if you gave it a chance. Get out your markers, watercolors, pencils, crayons, stickers and sparkles. Set your dot ablaze with color. Make that dot pop in more ways than one.Then play. Open and close your popup. Rotate and explore it from every angle.
What do you notice? Look at your pop-up from the side. What do you notice about the angles and sides as you fold and unfold it? What shapes do you see from the side view?Is your popup symmetrical? Can you make a dot popup that’s not symmetrical? Are the fold lines parallel to each other? Parallel to the centerfold? Will your dot pop differently if the fold lines are not parallel?How big can your dot be without protruding beyond the edge when your popup is folded? Can you figure out a rule? Can you design a popup that helps you explore other math concepts?Popups have all kinds of fun math connections. So make your Dot pop and see where it takes you!
