Tessellations

Tessellations drawn by Sofie Grade 7 Math students
What is a Tessellation?
Tessellate Online

Tutorials
Tessellation Tutorials
Geometry in Art
Math.com regular tessellations
Kaleidoscope Tessellations
Tessellations Grids
Cool Math Tessellations

Smoke and mirrors, and... triangles and polygons! Find some fascinating math at work here while working with properties of kaleidoscopes and folded mirrors.

Tessellation Examples
Hop's Echer's Tiles
T n' T tessellations
Classic Tessellation Design Examples
Nick's Tessellation
21st Century Escher Inspired Graphics
Mathematical Classifications of Tessellations
Santa's Elves Tessellation

Tessellation Projects by Sofie's Gr. 6/7 class

Teacher Resources
Tantilizing Tessellations Find fully ten lesson plans here, with graphics included, on tessellation through math, art, language arts, and science. Most are cooperative learning lesson plans, requiring modeling techniques and problem-solving.
Tessellation Construction:Try this slideshow style presentation on tessellation construction as a starting point for understanding tiling and trying your own compositions.

Learning Outcomes
  • Investigate and identify transformations
  • Investigate properties of polygons.
  • Manipulate squares, triangles, rhombuses, hexagons, and trapezoids to see how they might form patterns on a plane.
  • Decide which of their patterns is a regular tessellation (a pattern of shapes that cover the plane with no overlaps or spaces and regularly repeats).
  • Discover properties of tessellations.
  • Identify symmetry in tessellations.
  • Discover connections between mathematics and art.
  • Use a computer program to create a tessellation.
  • Share tessellations by putting creations on the school web site.

Last updated Saturday January 17, 2009
C. Pearl-Hodgins