Valentine Card / Art with a Math Twist

Hello dear blog readers..... I hope you've been keeping well.

Hope the weather around you has been nice to you. Up here, in Canada, it has been brutal!! We have had temperatures in the -22F (-30C). We are definitely no where near the 32F (0C). Right about now, I would take the 32F. I just hope we are nearing the end of this freeze.

A while back, I had posted this picture on Instagram. We made these Cat/Mouse Valentine cards and sent them to the Veterans. So, I thought I blog about how these little cute creatures are created.

I can't remember as to when and where I was inspired to do this art, so if it's yours, please let me know so that I can give you credit.

Materials you will need: red, pink, and black or brown construction paper, ribbon or yarn, glue, scissors, and markers.

I first hand out a template to each of my students. (I just randomly created this template.) You can easily just draw random hearts at varying sizes. {Sorry, I have no idea how to scan this template, otherwise, I would have let you download the template right from here. Once I figure out how to scan and download, I will update this post.}

The face, body, tail, eyes, ears, nose, and whiskers are all first cut out from this template and traced onto construction paper.

This student just finished tracing the eye on pink construction paper and is about to trace the face, body, and tail onto red construction paper.

Prior to this point, some of my students will huff and puff that they have to cut two of each body part, however, eventually, they think through and realize that they just have to fold their construction paper in order to save themselves some time.

Once the face, body, and tail is cut out, I then ask my students as to how we can apply this to math. As a class, we discuss and realize that the hearts are all congruent shapes. (I know, I'm sneaky....but, what a great way to incorporate math and art.)

Then, I randomly cut out three different lengths of ribbon. You can even use yarn, if you wish. The lengths depend on how long you want your cat to be.

Glue one ribbon to the top of the heart. This will act like a handle.

Glue the second ribbon at the bottom of the heart.

Glue the second congruent heart on top of the heart that you just glued the two ribbons on. Basically, you want to hide the ends of the ribbons. (You are sandwiching the ribbons between the two hearts.)

Repeat these steps for both the body and the tail.