If you’re looking for a math art activity I highly recommend teaching your kids about Tessellations! Tessellations are repetitive patterns of shapes that fit perfectly together across a 2-dimensional plane of space (think of how floor tiles fit together, or the graphic artist M.C. Escher). Creating tessellations is the perfect project for someone like my 8 year old, who loves fun math activities, yet needs a little extra encouragement when it comes to art: it’s creative but still systematic. You can use regular shapes like diamonds or other polygons, but it’s much more fun to make patterns with an irregular shapes.
How to make tessellations:
The first thing you need is a square of heavy paper. I (cleverly) stuck a post-it on card stock to help my son cut a regular square.
Next:
- Draw two lines from corner to corner with the starting points of both lines in the same corner. It is not important that these lines are identical or of a certain arc. The only important quality is that they start and end in a corner.
- Cut along the lines.
- Tape the cutout segments to the opposite sides of the square.
- Use pattern (our resembled a gingko leaf!) to trace shape onto paper, fitting each new shape along the outline of the previous one.
Finally, once you’ve satisfactorily filled up your paper, color it in to your heart’s desire!
Kiddo decided to use his neon colored pencils and we ended up with some very bright artwork!
What a great way to illustrate how they work! You could also break out some of Escher’s works to show the possibilities.
Escher is so fascinating. They love looking at his drawings.
This is a great idea and a great post! Thank you! I think I’ll start making some of these for my son to start coloring in.
It does make a really fun coloring page – just playing with patterns of colors is great fun.
Wow, I always wondered what tessellations were. Weren’t they in A Wrinkle in Time? or one of those books in that series? I love your art idea where art meets math! I’m pinning and tweeting!
Tessellations make me think of A Wrinkle in Time, too. But in the book they were tesseracts!
This is awesome! I’ll definitely try it with my kids!
I can’t believe how great this project is! This is definitely a keeper. Thanks for the math/art inspiration.
It was so, so much fun and the results are so pretty. I love that it can be done with different shapes, too.
What a great way to introduce tessalations – thanks!
(oh, and sticky note is clever
I thought it was clever, too! HAHA
I do this at the end of the school year but have my middle school students color with fabric crayons. I then I iron their work onto a twin flat sheet and we make a tessellation quilt as a mini school.
That sounds like an amazing project!
Just to let you know I’ve featured this on The Sunday Showcase: http://www.herecomethegirlsblog.com/2013/03/02/the-sunday-showcase-art.html
This is such a great idea! Thanks for sharing.
Very fun way to learn! Thanks for sharing at Mom’s Library!
I find it impressive that your son stuck with it. Maybe my daughter will too when she is 8