I'm always trying to push my 5th graders above and beyond what's typically expected of them. Normally I've seen tessellations done in middle school but I wanted to try and do something with this grade because this is when the are introduced to tessellations in math. In addition to that, I'm the type of person who has to have a 'purpose' for something, even in collage I would say to myself "what do I need this for?" Or, "what am I going to do with this?" It's so important to provide contexts for learning things and to give students opportunities to understand that most of the things they learn have multiple applications other than just the one context their learning it in. So, I ask my 5th graders,why learn about tessellations? I give them this alternative to the normal math curriculum; they can be a great tool/technique, even style of art! I think they were surprised at this manifestation of math in art, especially because its so rare that they see an art/math connection. Here is the outcome. I had them work on 9x12 graph paper to help keep their tessellating shape even when tracing it. And yes, they made their own tessellating shapes, I didn't provide any for them.
The book above is a link to amazon.com. Its an over-sized book with a lot of great images of Escher's work.
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