Sample Group Activities
A WRINKLE IN TIME
SAMPLE GROUP ACTIVITIES
Activity A -
THE TWO DIMENSIONAL PLANET
Purpose - To get students to think about what life would be like on a two dimensional world while thinking the children’s visit to the two-dimensional planet. This activity will help students distinguish between different dimensions. Furthermore, since this will be a group activity, it will get students to learn to work together as a unit.
Materials -
- construction paper
- scissors
- glue (optional) - the figures can be movable if desired
- markers
Instructions - Students should be split up into groups of four or five. Tell students to recall Meg’s experience on the two-dimensional planet in A Wrinkle in Time. Instruct them that it is their goal to build their own two-dimensional planet. They should use one or more pieces of construction paper to create the surface of their planet, and then, they can create different people, objects.
Group questions - Ask students different questions about what life would be like on a 2D planet. It might be helpful to have a worksheet with some of these questions so they can write them down.
- What would it be like to live on your planet?
- How would you move around?
- How would you see and recognize what is around you?
- How would you communicate with your neighbors?
Alternative activity - To encourage their creativity in writing and expressing themselves, ask students to create a dialogue between different people or animals on their 2D planet. After they write it down, then each group can perform their dialogue for the rest of the class (while using their 2D models as puppets).
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Activity B -
CONSTRUCTING A HYPERCUBE
Purpose - To get students to realize the progression of dimensions by helping them to build a hypercube (known in the book as a tesseract). As always, forcing kids to group projects at this age will help them learn how to work together.
Materials -
- plastic straws (24 for each group)
- string
- scissors
- tape
Instructions - Note - This activity should happen only after the students have been introduced to the idea of the tesseract (perhaps after the worksheet on Chapter 5). Split class into groups of four or five students. Give each group at least 24 straws. Using the string to connect the straws, have the students create first a square, then a cube. Then, by combining two groups together, you can show then how to connect the two cubes, and make it into a hypercube.
Alternative approach - Instead of having two congruent cubes interlock and form a hyper cube, it is possible to have one group make a large cube (by placing two or more straws end to end) and another group make a smaller cube. Then the smaller cube can be placed inside the larger cube and then suspended with string. This approach would give the students another view of the hypercube. This view is more closely associated with the idea of a tesseract.
Group questions - Ask the students to think about the progression used in creating this object:
- What do you start with when creating this object?
(one straw - a line segment - one dimensional)
- What do you create next?
(a square - two dimensional)
- After that?
(a cube - three dimensional)
- What must be next?
(a "hyper"cube - FOUR dimensional)
After asking these questions, move on to questions about sides, corners, and faces at each level of the progression. If you can get your students to have some comprehension of higher dimensionality without too much confusion, then this project has been a success.
Game Options - Once you have been through these questions, then it would be possible to set up a group competition. You could show the group a model, get them to name it, and, then, after hiding it, ask a follow up question like "how many faces does it have?" If the team gets the correct answer, then they get a certain amount of points.
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