Radial Symmetry Name Designs

To start off the year, 5th grade artists created designs using their name! To begin, we learned about radial symmetry, which is symmetry around a central point. Next, students folded a square piece of paper into triangles before creating a name design, stretching their letters to fit the triangular shaped space.

An example of radial symmetry in nature

Students then traced over their design with a marker and by flipping parts of the paper over each other, were able to trace their original design to repeat it in all the remaining triangles. The large windows in the connector hallway were actually essential to this step!

After they completed this step, students unfolded their paper to see their radially symmetrical name design repeated all the way around.

Students then added color to their design using colored pencil. They learned techniques to blend the colors together and create gradient effects, and also worked hard to cover all of the paper and apply even pressure to their colored pencils to get bright, bold colors.

Some examples of our finished radial symmetry name designs are below -- can you see the name of each artist in their design?

Anita, 5th grade (Domermuth Fantasia)

Esmeralda, 5th grade (Twomey)

Payton, 5th grade (Domermuth Fantasia)

Levon, 5th grade (Twomey)

Gabby, 5th grade (Twomey)

Cristian, 5th grade (Domermuth Fantasia)

Collin, 5th grade (Bellis)