The "Cootie Catcher" is a handmade toy that is familiar to every schoolboy and schoolgirl. Most students made them in grade school and in junior high, and write jokes, prophecies and secrets on them, and played tricks on each other.
The Cootie Catcher, of courses, is made of geometric figures and folded using geometric transformations. In constructing these Cootie Catchers, students will review these geometric concepts in concrete and visual ways. When the Cootie Catcher is finished, students can use them in many ways, while reviewing geometric concepts. For example, students can write theorems from any topic in geometry, to review them. One way to do this is to write the theorem in "if then" form, with the "if" part on the outside faces of the Cootie Catcher, and the "then" part on the inside. Not only does the student use the "toy" for review, but the physical act of writing the theorem helps to embed the theorem in the student's memory.
When the students have finished folding the cootie catcher, the next step is to write questions and answers, as shown in the example below:
This "Cootie Catcher" project can be used
as a study aid for just about any topic in the curriculum. Students
will find it an interesting project, and a very helpful "study
guide".
The knowledge of which geometry aims is the
knowledge of the eternal. Plato (ca 429-347
BC)
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