Symmetry Drawings and Activities
It was so fun to put together these seasonal symmetry drawings!
These Symmetry Drawing Worksheets are free downloads for my email community. See how half of the picture is provided, and students are prompted to complete the drawing?
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They are given the left side of the drawing with each page challenging them to complete the right side – a fun way to create symmetrical art.
In addition to offering these grid line drawing prompts, I also want to share a variety of different symmetrical line activities that will not only be fun for your student but will also increase their understanding of symmetry.
Basic Shapes Games
These games I shared could be extended to included symmetry learning.
Toss your diving ring onto a shape that has only 1 line of symmetry.
Swat the shape that has an infinite number of lines of symmetry.
A clock can also be a fun way to explore a circle’s infinite number of symmetrical lines.
Do you have any other symmetrical objects in your home that would make for fun symmetry line work?
Fruit and Vegetable Cutting
Let’s discover which of these fruits and vegetables are symmetrical.
It’s been several years since I came across this wooden produce set second-hand, but since then, I have seen many different versions of this same toy.
Here’s a similar wooden set from Melissa Doug. As with my set, some of the foods will be symmetrical and some will not.
You could always use real produce! You can find my favorite kid-friendly kitchen knives here with our other kitchen favorites.
Paper Folding
I found these colorful paper shapes at a dollar store.
I remember purchasing a few packs of them as I knew I would use them on repeat to teach my kids about symmetry in the coming years.
As a former classroom teacher, I always find myself especially excited about hands-on activities like this that allow students to explore a concept with their hands.
No worksheet required.
Struggling to find color paper shapes like these? No worries! You can simply cut (or have your student) cut out a variety of different two-dimensional shapes to use for symmetry exploration.
Mirror Images
Another fun, interactive idea for exploring symmetry is to hold your folded paper shapes up against a mirror.
See how the shapes have been folded on a line of symmetry and then placed up against the mirror on that line?
Now the shape is once again complete!
Such a fun and different way to engage with this mathematical concept.
This activity can be exciting for little hands as well as older kids!
For younger students, you may want to draw straight lines (maybe even dotted lines) for them to use as guides as they’re folding their paper shapes.
Learning to fold along a straight line is an important skill for little ones to learn, and this symmetrical line activity provides them with great practice with that.
This is also a great opportunity for helping young learners explore the difference between a vertical line and a horizontal line. Some little ones may even be ready to learn about diagonal lines.
Engaging with diagonal lines in this way (also cutting practice that includes diagonal lines) can be especially helpful as they begin to write, for example, the letter X.
As you can see, the ideas included in this post can be modified or extended in various ways to where preschoolers all the way to older elementary students will enjoy these symmetry activities!
Additional Resources:
- Explore bug symmetry.
- Draw and color symmetrical bugs.
- Draw animals on grid lines.
- Fruits and Vegetables Symmetry Drawing for Kids
Does your child want to learn to play chess?