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In the Hall of Doors, Alice finds a small door that leads to an incredible garden. Wishing she were smaller so that she could fit through the door, she finds a special drink that makes her shrink to a size of ten inches tall! When Alice realizes that she is too small, she decides to eat a special cake that makes her grow to nine feet tall. Throughout her adventures, Alice shrinks and grows many times. In fact, at one point, she is so small that she can see eye-to-eye with a caterpillar. When the Caterpillar asks Alice who she is, she replies, "I--I hardly know, Sir, just at present - at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."
Today's activity will give you the chance to create a giant caterpillar, so that you can look eye-to-eye with a caterpillar, too!
Did You Know?
- If you were ten times smaller than you are now, you would be able to fit inside a cereal box?
- If you were twenty times taller than you are now, you could step over Children's Discovery Museum?
- Architects are people who design houses and buildings. They use scale (making things bigger and smaller) and measurements all the time to create miniature models of the buildings they are designing?
- Do you see the small caterpillar on this page? If you measure it with your ruler, you'll find that it's about 5 inches long and one inch wide. In today's activity, you will make a giant caterpillar that is ten times the size of the caterpillar on this page.
Materials: What You'll Need
- a ruler or tape measure
- paper clips
- trash bags or grocery bags
- string or tape
- yesterday's newspaper
- optional: paper plates, paper cups, balloons
Activity: Try it!
- To create your giant caterpillar, start by taking a close look at the caterpillar on this page. How many segments does it have? How big are the eyes in comparison to the rest of its body? Are the legs the same length as each of the segments or are they twice as long? When you create your giant caterpillar, try to make its proportions equal to those of the smaller caterpillar.
- Now, using trash bags stuffed with newspaper, begin to create the segments of your caterpillar. Remember, you are trying to make a caterpillar that is ten times the size of the one on this page. Since this caterpillar is 5 inches long, your caterpillar should be about 50 inches long when you finish.
- Use string or tape to hold your segments together.
- Next, use other materials to add the eyes and legs to your caterpillar. On the printed caterpillar, the eyes take up about half of the face. Can you make giant eyes that take up about half of your caterpillar's face?
- When you finish making your caterpillar, lie down on the ground next to it. Can you see eye-to-eye? Whose eyes are bigger?
Try It, Again!
- Now that you've made a giant version of a caterpillar, why don't you make a small version of yourself?
- Ask your parent to help you measure how tall you are. Have them tell you how many feet tall you are.
- To make a small version of yourself, pretend that one paper clip equals one foot. If you are three feet tall, your small version will use three paper clips. Line the paper clips up on a piece of paper and draw your body in around the paperclips.
Connect It to Standards
"Instructional programs ... should enable students to:
- understand measurable attributes of objects and the units, systems, and processes of measurement
- Apply appropriate techniques, tools, and formulas to determine measurements." (NCTM Standards)
Adventure into the Newspaper
- Words in the newspaper grow and shrink just like Alice does. Sometimes words appear very large and at other times they are very small. Look through the newspaper to find words that are printed in very large letters and then find those same words in very small letters. Make a collage with your words.
- Did you know that the word 'Wonderland' has at least three different smaller words within it? WON, ON, and LAND are all smaller words found inside of a larger word. Look through the newspaper to find other large words that have smaller words inside. Cut out the long word, paste it to a piece of paper, and write each of the shorter words you found!
Curiouser and curiouser ...
Check out this fun book to discover more about scale and shrinking and growing.
Shrinking Mouse by Pat Hutchins
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