Children\'s Mathematics

Figure 3.4 James and Mitchell construct spirals

Several children decided to make square, oblong, triangular, oval, diamond and

pentagon ‘spirals’ over a period of several weeks.Their interest in different shapes

then led to a comparison of the different widths apart of their cuts as they

created spirals.They were developing their own theories: spacing the cuts further

apart led to wider strips but shorter lengths when the paper spirals were

extended.

The circular paper spirals led to an interest in making different shaped spirals –

all ideas that came from the children in their play. At first they drew these shapes

and later progressed to cutting them out.The act of cutting out changed their

two-dimensional representations to three-dimensional objects that they could

manipulate. Analysis of cutting out as a process of animation ‘offers a different

opportunity to make meaning’ (Pahl, 1999b, p. 115) and one in which ‘represented

objects come off the page and are brought into the world of physical

objects’(Kress, 1997, p. 27).

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