Triangle Tessellation Placemats

(sorry it’s not the best photo I can’t figure out how to get a good shot without the glare off the lamination)

We are all sick here, well Lani is probably better but the rest of us are still coughing spluttering and going through boxes of tissues faster than the respect leaves a room when Mark Latham enters it.  As we haven’t been able to go to any of our regular activities I needed something that they could work on instead. Specifically something they could work on quietly, by themselves, without asking me too many questions so that I could take a Panadol, sit on the lounge chair and hope the room would stop spinning.

I found a triangle grid printable here and printed off three on plain paper then one sheet of each colour which we then cut along the lines producing a table top full of mini rainbow triangles. After a very brief chat about tessellations in paving and mosaic art works and pressing on them the point that the shapes touch but do not over lap I went off to cuddle a sick baby on the rocking chair.

They were occupied gluing triangles onto the template long enough to let me get Sabrina off to sleep and even have a little vacant mind time to myself.  And to top it off they were quiet pleased with the result so was I so I asked them whether they wanted to laminate them and turn them into place mats. They were thrilled by that idea and wanted their names on them. In a moment of inspiration I thought of a way of squeezing two lessons out of a veg out afternoon. I got them each to type their names into Word then, with my guidance, alter the height of the letters, highlight the text and change the font type (all new concepts for them) we then glued their names on and laminated the place mats in time to eat junk food off them as we watched Food Revolution (a bit of an education fail there but I’m sick).

I think they look quite circusy and now the kids think they know all there is to know about tessellations, can’t wait to blow their minds tomorrow when I show them this one, and this one and a few of the ones on this Totally Tessellated site.

Oh and if you think tessellating is just serious maths business, check this out.