This quilt is a part of Caleb Shaw's art collection, and this particular art piece is called "Bed with Slats". The quilt is a part of a collection from the 1800's, created by enslaved African Americans in the US. One thing I really enjoyed about this piece is that it was created by enslaved African American women, with very little education. However, this quilt is a supreme work of art, mathematics, and beauty. Although these women did not experience formal educations, they had to be very intelligent and creative to make a quilt such as this. It's empowering, since women back then were not allowed to be mathematicians, but they had mathematic abilities.
I thought that this quilt art piece had a place in my mathematics classroom, because I could show them how they could be quilt mathematicians too. I could have them identify shapes and the areas of them (using a real quilt or a print out). Additionally, the students could practice creating a quilt using little shape pieces and I could sew it for them and keep it in the classroom. This kind of activity could make them feel connected to such an old practice and make them feel like young mathematicians.
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I like your choice of art piece to implement in your classroom. There are various ways that this specific piece could be incorporated in a math classroom. Your way of identifying shapes and areas would be a good way because of how many varieties of shapes there are. I thought that this art piece could also be used to teach multiplication by grouping. We were doing something similar in our arithmetic class a few weeks ago, and I found this visual to fit great with this concept.
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