Make a Math Flower!

Celebrate the love of math by making a beautiful flower (or even a whole garden!) with operational symbols and multiplication facts!

This fun craft takes about one half hour per flower and is appropriate for ages 6+ (with some help from a parent), or ages 9+ working alone.

Supplies

• Free printable Math Flower stencils
• Colored card stock
• Green chenille pipe cleaners
• Floral crafting styrofoam
• Dried moss
• A small flower pot (if making a potted flower)
• Wooden ruler
• A compass (or other way of making a circle)
• Glue gun and its glue
• Glue stick
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Marker

Instructions

1. Print out your Math Flower stencils. Cut out the pieces that you will need - the dotted lines show where the upper piece of the petal should be glued over the bottom piece. Cut only on the solid lines.

2. Trace the correct number of petals onto the card stock with the pencil, and cut them out with scissors. If you want to make any of the smaller flowers, trace and cut those pieces on card stock too.

3. Use the compass and instructions on the stencil sheet to create a large circle background to hold the petals, and a small center circle (the flower's ovary).

4. Carefully arrange the pieces of the flower evenly. Glue them down using the glue stick.

5. Allow to dry and add the numbers and symbols to the petals.

6. The largest flowers use an entire ruler as their stem. The medium-sized flowers use half a ruler. Use the glue gun and its glue to glue the flower to the ruler - make sure the central number is facing up the right way before you attach the flower! I taped mine down too just for good measure.

7. The small and tiny flowers use the green chenille pipe cleaners as stems. You can cut them short or leave them long and twist them so that they have "leaves." Use the glue gun to attach the smaller flowers to the pipe cleaner stems.

8. Put the styrofoam into the flower pot.

9. Stick the flowers you made into the styrofoam and add the dried moss to cover it.

Voila! Your flower is finished!

To make the math garden, simply create All The Flowers You Want, and put them in a large block of styrofoam. Add the moss and you're done!