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Fibonacci Spiral Craft

updated on

– just 5 steps –

When your kids are different ages and enjoy different things, what a win when you find a craft that suits everybody!

This activity ticks so many boxes, helping to bend brains as well as flex fine motor skills. A bit of careful nail-hammering will also satisfy the sensory-seekers and a beautiful maths sequence to please the number puzzlers.

What’s involved: Tapping nails into a piece of wood, following the printout of the fibonacci spiral, and then weaving wool around the nails.

Ages:

  • 3 and up (fine motor skills ++)
  • 5+ sensory, numeracy and patterns
  • 8+ maths sequencing and squares of numbers
  • adults – satisfying and fun to do – a great activity to share with your kids

Result:

  • Introduction to the Fibonacci sequence, spirals and the Golden Mean
  • Introduction to squares of numbers
  • Sensory input and joint feedback
  • Fine motor exercise (tapping nails in and winding thread/wool around them)
  • Skills with a small hammer and panel-pin nails
  • Personal A4-sized artwork to enjoy and feel sense of achievement

Supplies:

  • Piece of wood (A4-sized, approx 3cm – 5cm thick)
  • Small hammer
  • Small nails, with head about 5mm diameter
  • Printout of the Fibonacci spiral
  • Masking tape
  • Wool or thread of any colour
Supplies: Wood, picture, masking tape, nails, hammer, wool.
Choose any wool or thread. Mix colours if you’d like to.

Steps:

Please always supervise this activity – hammers and nails can be unsafe in little hands.

1. Print a copy of the Fibonacci spiral on A4 paper. You can find a version on Wikipedia, which is where I printed ours out, or just search and you will find loads.

Image source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_spiral#/media/File:FibonacciSpiral.svg

2. Tape the printout to a piece of wood with masking tape

3. Tap nails into the wood along the line of the spiral (leaving at least one square between each nail. Leave the nails protruding – don’t tap them all the way in.

Tap in the nails, with a gap between each. Don’t tap all the way in!

4. When you have hammered in all the nails you want on your spiral, choose some wool or thread.

5. Knot the wool onto the first nail and then wind it around each one in turn, creating a continuous loop of wool along the nails.

Enjoy your creation and learning more about it !