MathHappens has partnered with The Works Museum, an interactive STEM museum in Bloomington, MN to bring The Shape Studio to life the first and third Saturdays of each month. The Shape Studio contains a wide range of mathy fun, including tiling turtles, 21st Century Pattern Blocks, Bubble Tiles, and much, much more!

We want to share with you five scenes from this week’s session.

Scene 1

A ten-year-old was filling the heart frame with 21st Century Pattern Blocks. After about 15 to 20 minutes, he exclaimed, ‘Yes!” Asked what the key was to completing his mission, he observed that it was not using the darts and kites at the bottom.

His grandmother observed “He had to remove the whole bottom half.”

Sometimes you have to undo in order to make progress.

Scene 2

At the mirror book, a mother asked her four-year-old at the mirror book (which was open to a 120° angle), “Do you see your face in there? How many of you are there?”

A Barbie stands in for the four-year-old in this image.

“Two,” the child replied, then paused a moment. “Three.”

Scene 3

A five-year-old did the butterfly puzzle twice. The first time with whole butterflies, then he moved to the next frame and did the puzzle a second time, but with half-butterflies.

Scene 4

A fifteen-year-old endeavored to solve all 21 of the Blocks, Jr. challenges. Along the way, he found two errors. He noticed that the Bridge says “5 blocks,” but requires all six. Additionally, the high chair seems to require 18 cubes, but is labeled “4 pieces,” which would imply more than four cubes per piece on average, but none of the individual pieces has more than four cubes.

Scene 5

Back at the mirror book, a father and an eight-year-old invented a game of disappearing shapes. “Look at all these shapes!” (left) “Now there’s only three! What happened?” (right)

This game evolved during a second round when they returned about an hour later. The child told his father, “There’s four shapes. I’m gonna take one away.”

Dad: “There’s five shapes.”

Eight-year-old: “How are there five?”

And then a few minutes later the child exclaimed, “There’s ten shapes! I’m going to take one away!”

Ten shapes.

And then there was much delight about the fact that removing one shape reduced the total to five shapes.

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If you’re in the Twin Cities, come play math with us at The Works on November 2 or 16, or any first or third Saturday. The museum also has great permanent installations.

We have additional regularly scheduled Math Rooms in Mankato, MN; Austin, TX; and Albuquerque, NM. Also, we are always looking for new partners in new locations. Get in touch to get a conversation started with your location.