Have a snowflake
A simple joy
I like snowflakes.
I like the symmetry.
I like the creativity.
I like how hard it is to fold a piece of paper into six quadrants so you can get a six pointed snowflake when you cut it out.
I like creating one arm of something and not knowing what the final thing will look like. It’s like a little present each time.
I like that they are ephemeral. They are paper… not meant to last. Like a real snowflake falling to the ground … its life will not be long.
I like snowflakes enough that I found a way to integrate them into my 4th grade tech curriculum.
Step 1 - day 1. Learn how to merge, subtract, intersect and combine shapes.
Step 2 - day 2. Create some complex shapes, like letters, using a variety of simple shapes, like squares, triangles and circles, and the tools above.
Step 3a - day 3. Create a complex shape, duplicate it 6 times and then rotate each piece a multiple of 60 degrees (they have to do the math) and put the same end at the center - then merge/combine (snowflake one)
Step 3b.. still day 3. With the same complex shape, duplicate it 6 times and then rotate each piece a multiple of 60 degrees and put the other end as the center. (snowflake two)
Step 3c. Take the two snowflakes. Rotate one 30 degrees and then place them on top of each other. Merge/combine. (snowflake three)
The snowflakes below were created as my example to the students today in class. The initial shape is extremely simple, really. (In the top left snowflake just pick out the circle, the diamond, the rectangle, the oval and a piece of the line around the edge… The circle is the common element of all 6 pieces)
Total time to make the snowflakes, about 5 minutes.
I also like to cut out snowflakes. It had become a thing I did every year. Katie loved to tape them onto the windows. Here’s the batch from 2020.
Last year, with Katie gone, I didn’t do any cut out snowflakes.
This year as I prepared to go to KS’s for hot yoga and then a Thanksgiving day run the next morning I knew I was going to have a few hours of interaction with her parents and thought, man… I need something to do while I’m chatting with them. I like to be busy while interacting with folks.
So I took some paper and scissors.
It’s a very therapeutic thing to sit and snip away while having long conversations with people. Truly. I think I made about 10. I also made a string of people and a couple of scary ghost like figures. When KS’s dad mentioned a rocket ship I somehow managed to produce a rocket ship moments later. Feeling pretty good about myself after that.
Some of the snowflakes are on a wall at KS’s… I imagine a few have already fallen down.
Some of the snowflakes I took with me to a Thanksgiving party. One of the tablecloths was a dark red so I just laid them on the table. They looked lovely and people were like, “you made those?!” “why yes…” ohsoprideful. I’m sure they got recycled.
After Thanksgiving I had to substitute in Science class. The classes happened to match my Tech work periods so it wasn’t too big a deal but the work the students had to do was pretty straight forward and they were exceedingly well behaved.
I sat through the first class and was rather bored.
So I got some scissors and paper between classes and spent the next 2 hours cutting snowflakes and hanging them throughout our science teacher’s classroom as the students worked. I was entertained. The students were amused. They were making bets on if the science teacher would even notice.
The next day the science teacher wrote me an email, “I LOVE THE SNOWFLAKES”
and then the next day in the teacher’s lounge, “I Love the snowflakes. I keep looking somewhere new and then there’s another one!”
Ahh… the simplicity…
The temporality…
Like us, really. Like our days, our moments, our interactions.
This evening I listened to a small TED talk clip on NPR. It was about how it is that some folks manage to live so long even though their gene set is not remarkable.
It wasn’t money. It wasn’t about achieving. It was about taking care of themselves… in health of the body and health of the mind and health of the spirit.
They eat simply. They live on hills. They have a positive reason to be every day.
Be a snowflake.
Every day.