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You are here: Home / Learn / Math Activities / Math Art Activity: Tessellations

Math Art Activity: Tessellations

February 20, 2013

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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).

Math Art is a great way to combine subjects. Be creative!

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 shape.

How to make tessellations:

How to Make Tessellations with Kids

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.

Tessellation Activity instructions

Next:

  1. 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.
  2. Cut along the lines.
  3. Tape the cutout segments to the opposite sides of the square.
  4. 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!

Math Activity: tessellation coloring activity

Kiddo decided to use his neon colored pencils and we ended up with some very bright artwork!

Watch our video!

If you like tessellations, you’ll love more awesome math art:

Heart tessellations – three ways!

Spirolaterals: practice multiplication and make art at the same time!

Math art books: picture books, activity books and more

Fibonacci art project

Or, click the image below for more totally awesome ways to combine math and art:

Math art projects

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by: Erica posted in: Art and Crafts, Math Activities 19 Comments

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Comments

  1. Erin- The Usual Mayhem says

    February 20, 2013 at 7:14 am

    What a great way to illustrate how they work! You could also break out some of Escher’s works to show the possibilities.

    Reply
    • MomandKiddo says

      February 20, 2013 at 9:55 am

      Escher is so fascinating. They love looking at his drawings.

      Reply
  2. thepicturebookreview says

    February 21, 2013 at 12:33 am

    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. 🙂

    Reply
    • MomandKiddo says

      February 21, 2013 at 9:14 pm

      It does make a really fun coloring page – just playing with patterns of colors is great fun.

      Reply
  3. PragmaticMom says

    February 21, 2013 at 2:30 pm

    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!

    Reply
    • MomandKiddo says

      February 21, 2013 at 9:12 pm

      Tessellations make me think of A Wrinkle in Time, too. But in the book they were tesseracts!

      Reply
  4. maryanne @ mama smiles says

    February 22, 2013 at 9:40 pm

    This is awesome! I’ll definitely try it with my kids!

    Reply
  5. Jeanette Nyberg says

    February 24, 2013 at 8:55 am

    I can’t believe how great this project is! This is definitely a keeper. Thanks for the math/art inspiration.

    Reply
    • MomandKiddo says

      February 25, 2013 at 6:50 am

      It was so, so much fun and the results are so pretty. I love that it can be done with different shapes, too.

      Reply
  6. Marie-Claude Leroux says

    February 26, 2013 at 9:55 am

    What a great way to introduce tessalations – thanks!
    (oh, and sticky note is clever 🙂

    Reply
    • MomandKiddo says

      February 26, 2013 at 10:23 am

      I thought it was clever, too! HAHA

      Reply
  7. Jamie says

    March 2, 2013 at 6:52 am

    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.

    Reply
    • MomandKiddo says

      March 2, 2013 at 4:49 pm

      That sounds like an amazing project!

      Reply
  8. Rebecca says

    March 2, 2013 at 3:25 pm

    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

    Reply
  9. Hwee says

    March 2, 2013 at 4:37 pm

    This is such a great idea! Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  10. Ashley says

    March 3, 2013 at 9:53 am

    Very fun way to learn! Thanks for sharing at Mom’s Library!

    Reply
  11. Natalie says

    March 3, 2013 at 7:23 pm

    I find it impressive that your son stuck with it. Maybe my daughter will too when she is 8 🙂

    Reply
  12. Jacquie says

    February 19, 2014 at 4:27 pm

    Featuring this at the Discover & Explore round-up this week! We just did a tessellation activity last week too (with a surprise type of media) – they are so much fun for kids 🙂

    Reply
  13. Ella says

    June 2, 2020 at 6:11 am

    I like the pattern craft it is awesome 👏 I did it and it was really relaxing

    Reply

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