Patty Paper

Patty Paper can be used in elementary, middle school of high school settings. It is a paper that was used to separate hamburger patties and is sort of like parchment paper, but really thin. You can do more with it than folding origami or regular paper for two reasons. It is cheap, and the lines show really well for the folds. You can use it for teaching many mathematical ideas including fractions, multiplication, algebra and geometry.

LINKS

This You-Tube video demonstrates how to find the line that bisects another line. This is fairly simple and direct teaching of the activity but there are lots of other things you can do that are more open ended. Copy and paste this link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvgAvVKUISQ

EDUCATIONAL VALUE

Once you get to know the uses of patty paper you can actually use it for developing geometric proof and other geometric properties. We used patty paper for a study of young children's multiplicative thinking is a study that was later published as an article in Teaching Children Mathematics (Turner, E., Junk, D. & Empson, S. (2007) The Power of Paper Folding Tasks to Support Multiplicative Thinking and Rich Mathematical Discussion Teaching Children Mathematics, 13, 6, 322-329.). A side note to the study is that patty paper serves as an instant feedback mechanism for the learner. We had two basic tasks: predicting what would happen given a particular sequence of folds, and propose what sequence of folds would be needed to make a certain number of sections. (approximate examples of each type: "If you fold paper into 2 equal parts and then 3 equal parts how many equal parts will you see when you open the paper back up?" and "If you want the paper to show exactly 8 folds, what are the steps to folding it?") Students make predictions or make the folds then reflect on what happened and make appropriate adjustments. Class time can be spent talking about why the sequences of folds worked or did not work. Also records can be made of the folds that will eventually reflect the relationship of multiplication, division and fractions.