Good Morning Copper Base,
At school we enjoy looking closely at patterns in nature as part of our geometry and beauty. Look at these lovely patterns below.
ISLAMIC PATTERNS
Talk to your children What shapes can the children see? What are the properties of these shapes? Through these discussions you will discuss shape vocabulary in relation to circle, triangle, square, hexagon, and octagon.
Shape investigation
Cut out a range of 2D shapes from paper (like the ones above) and ask them to fit them together so there are no gaps. After some time, ask the children which ones fit together and which ones don’t. (Oblongs, rhombus, parallelograms, equilateral triangles, squares and hexagons will tessellate.) Once the children have had an opportunity to explore, ask them to draw a pattern by fitting their shapes together and drawing around them. This could be developed by asking the children to colour in, using a repeating pattern and explaining how they did it.
Have fun making different patterns. You can colour on the shapes or cut out the shapes from different coloured paper if you have it at home.
Enjoy and happy pattern making.