The Möbius Strip Kids!

The Owls started their short day off with assembly. The focus of our assembly was to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Friends watched a special performance by the New York Chinese Cultural Center. 

The performance began with a Chinese Lion Dance. The Owls loved watching the lion dance around, especially when he threw the ball high in the air and caught it in his mouth! 

Next, friends watched an acrobat spin six plates on poles! Friends were very excited but also nervous because they did not want her to drop one of the plates because it could break!  

The acrobat then taught friends how she learned to spin plates. She gave four Lower School friends a small stick and a handkerchief. She told friends to place the center of the handkerchief on the top of the stick. Next, she told friends to begin spinning the stick by moving your wrist in a circle. 

After the plate spinning, friends learned that this year is the year of the Monkey. So we watched a celebratory dance performed by a character called the Monkey King. 

Next, the acrobat came back out and performed foot juggling and more acrobatic movements on a table. The Owls did learn that she has been practicing her balance, flexibility and coordination since she was a very little girl. Friends could not wait to go back to their classroom to test out their own balancing skills! (Please note: The Owls were told they were not allowed to attempt standing on anything while testing their skills!)

The assembly wrapped with the final performance being ribbon dancing. More friends were called to the stage where they were taught the art of Chinese Ribbon Dancing. The Owls were extra excited because one of our Owl friends was asked to go up on stage! Friends all agreed that he did an "OWL-tastic" job! 

After assembly, friends headed off to meet with Justin, one of our Middle School Math teacher and more importantly, Lily's dad, to work on a fun math lesson! 

Justin began our "OWL-tastic" math lesson by asking friends if they knew how many sides a piece of paper has. Friends all excitedly shouted "FOUR!" But we soon learned that this was a trick! Friends discovered that we were counting the edges of the shape not sides. With this hint, some of the Owls put on their thinking caps and discovered that there were two sides of the paper, the front and the back! Justin seemed very impressed with us, so he tried to challenge us by asking us how many sides a pyramid and cube had. But the Owls were way too smart and easily counted up all the sides! 

Next Justin taught us how to make a circle by folding up a strip of paper and taping the ends together. Then Justin asked us the tricky question again, "How many sides does this circle have?" After some thought friends all agreed "TWO!" So we decided to check our work by drawing a blue line on the outside of the circle and an orange line on the inside! The Owls guessed correctly! 

Then Justin said that he could teach us a way that he could use that same strip of paper and make it so it would only have one side! Friends all agreed that Justin had to be a Magician, not a Mathematician because how else would he just make one side disappear?! So Justin took the piece paper and bent it like he was going to fold it back into a circle, but at the last minute, before taping it, he gave the one side a little twist! Justin then held up this new "twisted circle" and told friends that this was called a Möbius strip! Then, Justin asked everyone to help count how many sides the Möbius strip has with him. So he started drawing the line just where he taped the strip together. But something magical happened! The line that he was drawing just kept going around and around and around! The Owls were amazed and excitedly wanted to make their very own Möbius strips.  

So friends hopped up in the Middle Schoolers desks where Justin taught us what would happen if we linked two circles together and cut them as well as two Möbius strips together and cut them! Ask your Owl if they remember what shapes we got! 

Lastly, each Owl picked out their very own strip of paper to turn into a Möbius strip. Then with the help of Justin, Erin and our teachers, we made our very own Möbius strips. After all of Möbius strips were magically formed, we headed back to our classroom to enjoy our delicious lunches! On our back to our room, all the Owls decided that they no longer wanted to be called Owls and that they wanted to now go by The Möbius Strip Kids!