Tesselations

[Ausmumof3]

Any helpful videos tips etc for teaching these better. Although the concept is fairly simple ds seems to make a lot of errors and struggle to flip the shapes around in his head. Is there any way to teach the skills more explicitly rather than just general awareness?

 

I don't really remember this being a thing when I was at school other than on Iq tests.

[Arcadia]

Let him cut out the shapes he draw for tessellating on heavy weight scrap/construction paper and rotate/flip/translate the cutouts.

 

These AU links are similar to what the science/tech museums here use

https://www.literacyandnumeracy.gov.au/sites/nlnw2015/files/downloads/ed15-0025_nlnw_2015_activity_sheet_tessellation_02.pdf

http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/viewing/S5107/pdf/18_2DSpace_3_11E.pdf

Page 15 http://www.tmag.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/129969/Pattern_Play_Teachers_guide.pdf

 

ETA:

My kids enjoyed looking at examples on this website. Just click the previous or next button to scroll

http://tessellations.org/seth-tessellation-bird-motif-09.shtml

My oldest boy's science lab notebook for an outside class was filled with more tessellations than science notes. The center gave each child a composition book so my kid happily doodled. Link is almost exactly what he did :) http://donsteward.blogspot.com/2013/12/tessellations.html

Edited November 2, 2016 by Arcadia

[letsplaymath]

There are several ideas for exploring tessellations in this blog post -- and links to coloring pages, too. Coloring a tessellation may make it easier (compared to when he just looks at one) for your son to follow how the pattern rotates and interlinks.

 

I don't know what age your son is, but one of the best ways to start with tessellations is by playing with pattern blocks: How can you cover the table without gaps? (Printable pattern blocks available here. Print on card stock, or laminate the paper, because stiff ones are easier to manipulate than plain paper.) Then ask the same question about other polygons: triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons, etc. Which ones can cover the table (or graph paper) without gaps? Which can't, and why? And with pentominoes and similar shapes, like the Don Steward page above.

 

Have your son design his own shapes on graph paper, using simple straight grid lines. Can he make a shape that won't tessellate? How does he know it won't? Can he make a shape that will tessellate? Draw the tessellation on graph paper.

 

Then, if he wants to try one of the more creative tessellation patterns, he should have enough background to make it easier to follow the instructions.

[Ausmumof3]

Thank you guys that's awesome! I also found some cool inspiration from Escher's tesselations

[SparklyUnicorn]

I wonder why this concept is covered at all.  Not trying to thread jack, but I've always wanted to ask.

 

When we did it I just read through and we did a few exercises out loud and that was it.  DS is in pre-calc now and I still can't look back and say OHHH NOW I know why we went over that.  Maybe it is vaguely related to graphing concepts? 

 

 

[bookbard]

Wasn't there an article someone posted recently about how early spatial awareness was related to being good at maths and science later on? It was basically saying that spatial awareness is trainable (by doing stuff like flipping tesselations in your head!) and we should be doing more of it. 

 

I agree playing with real tiles is the best way to learn how to do it.