Candy Wrappers to Scale

We ended our unit of Scale with 7th grade by putting our art skills to the test. I found this idea on Pinterest...where most of my really great ideas come from. Check out Fast Times of a Middle School Math Teacher for more great ideas. I modified it a little to meet the needs of my students and am really excited about how it turned out. 

I had originally planned on two days for the project, but some of the students went a little large and so I extended their time. They had 3 days in class to work plus a week to work outside of class. 

Although we had done an entire unit on learning about Ratios and Proportions with several lessons on Scale, they had a tough time getting started. We had a discussion about the best way to go about creating our candy bar wrappers so that they looked like REAL candy bar wrappers. We eventually came to the conclusion that a grid was the best way to make sure all parts were proportional, this idea actually stemmed from the grids you sometimes find in coloring books when asked to redraw a picture. 

We learned that markers made it look more real than colored pencils.

Some students chose large scale factors.

This one is pretty cool, love the colors!

What I really enjoyed about this project was the assessment. As a class we decided what the rubric would look like to grade their wrappers. Each student was then able to grade their own. I followed by using the same rubric and their grade came from the average of the two grades. Grading their own work was a great learning tool to hold themselves accountable to the rubric.

I am so happy with how they turned out!