Geometric Tessellation (Doing Math)

Doing Math

In class we worked on the Tessellations on paper and with pattern blocks. I started the above Tessellation in class, but I finished it over the weekend. I added a couple more patterns to the Tessellation and added color. The color really seemed to help. It makes the Tessellation look better and it's easier to see the pieces that are reflected and rotated. 

While creating this pattern I had to start a couple of times. I knew that I needed something that that would repeat, but the repeating needed to be something simple in order to go back and create the colors. This is something that took some time because I kept making it too hard and it was very hard to follow. When it is that hard to follow its very hard to figure out which color you need to use and the shapes keep going together. After thinking about my strategy, I realized that I needed to create simple shapes that don't overlap each other. When the shapes started to overlap it became difficult for an on looker to see the patterns and the tessellation. 

I didn't spend an hour on the above piece so I decided to create another Tessellation...but this time I was going to create a geometric Tessellation. I did this using an app for my iPad called Mandalar. 

This app was very easy to use and would be great to use with students in the classroom. I think this app could really help the students understand shapes and Tessellations. The only problem with this app is that it was really hard to fill in the shapes along the outside of the picture above, that is why you don't see the blue and yellow around the outside.

I have made tessellations from when I was a student in elementary class, but coming back to these really after going through the College of Education, I have a whole different meaning. While creating these tessellations I was thinking about how the students would enjoy this and what they would learn from it. It would be a great way to involve technology into the classroom and have the students work with this app. While creating these tessellation, like stated above, you have to think about what shapes you are going to put next and where the shape would make sense. I feel this would be a great idea for the students to learn and a great problem for the students to work through. 

This is an app that I will save and play along with and try to create even more Tessellations!