Slice it in Half!

Fourth Grade Math

Teach your students about symmetry with real life objects! Have them draw lines of symmetry for various
shapes, food items, and objects.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to draw lines of symmetry on 2-D shapes, classroom objects, and food items. Students will
be able to identify if a shape or object has more than one line of symmetry.

Materials and preparation Key terms

Board markers lines of symmetry

Scissors
Construction paper (5 sheets per group)
Sandwich bags (1 per group)
Timer
Your Half, My Half worksheet
Symmetry worksheet
Ruler
Scratch paper
Colored pencils
Learning Symmetry Owl worksheet
Sailing the Sea worksheet

Attachments

Learning Symmetry Owl (PDF)

Sailing the Sea (PDF)
Symmetry (PDF)
Your Half, My Half (PDF)

Introduction (5 minutes)

Explain to students that they will be learning about lines of symmetry today.
Ask students if they know what the word symmetry means.
Explain that a line of symmetry is the line they get when they divide something and both halves are
exactly the same.
Model a rectangle on the board, and invite a student to come to the board and draw the lines of
symmetry.

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling (10 minutes)

Ask students to name objects around the class that when divided would have the exact same halves.
List objects students come up with on the board.
Ask students which objects would only have one line versus objects that would have more.
When a student describes an object, have them come to the board to draw the object and the lines of
symmetry on it.
Ask students if lines of symmetry could be drawn on their faces.

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Guided Practice (30 minutes)

Instruct students to get into groups of 4.

List the following 2-D shapes on the board: triangle, square, rectangle, rhombus, kite, pentagon,
hexagon, octagon, circle, oval, triangle, and trapezoid.
Draw unfamiliar shapes on the board.
Direct students to draw and cut the 2-D shapes out of construction paper.
Ask students to work with partners within their group to draw the lines of symmetry on the shapes and
fold the shapes to see if they are equal halves.
Have students save the folded shapes in sandwich bags and put their group number with a permanent
marker on the sandwich bag.
Set the timer to 20 minutes.
Discuss with students which shapes had lines of symmetry and how many. Discuss with students if any
shapes had no lines of symmetry.
Have each group talk about one shape and its lines of symmetry.

Independent working time (25 minutes)

Instruct students to complete the Symmetry worksheet.

Ask your students to complete the Your Half, My Half worksheet.
Go over the worksheets as a class.

Differentiation

Enrichment: Instruct students to complete the Learning Symmetry Owl worksheet. This worksheet is
more challenging because there are more aspects to the image.
Support: Ask your students to come to the back of the class. Guide them to draw food items they like on
a sheet of paper. Ask if they would like to divide the item with a friend equally. Have them draw a line
over the items to see if they can equally share or not. Explain that if they can cut the item into equal
pieces, then the item has a line of symmetry. Instruct students to draw more lines of symmetry if
possible, and ask if more equal pieces could be created out of that food item.

Assessment (20 minutes)

Direct your students to complete Sailing the Sea worksheet.

Review and closing (10 minutes)

Have your students take out their sandwich bags from the lesson.
Instruct a student to pull out a shape without looking and explain the lines of symmetry in that shape.
Ask each group to do the same thing.
Repeat this until all shapes have been covered.

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Name Date
Practice in Symmetry: Use the grid below to draw a mirror-image of the owl's left side on the
blank side of the axis.

Left Right
Axis
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Sailing The Sea
Draw the mirror image of each item below to complete a shape.

Do you see some letters?

Spell out a word using the letters you found. ____________________________

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 SYMMETRY
Draw a line of symmetry on each shape.

M E
C
D H
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Your Half, My Half
Can you draw a line to divide these shapes in half evenly?
Some shapes can be divided two different ways.

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