Course Guide - USAID Teacher Education Project

d) Children can design their own tessellations even before they understand the 360-degree rule. Even children as young as 7-years of age can be given instructions thatwill allow them to create a tessellation from one of the basic tessellating shapes. Readthrough the activity Creating Tessellations (which will be used during the classsession) that shows how young children, using only scissors, can create uniquetessellations.3. What is essential to know or do in class?a) Some shapes can tessellate to tile a plane, whereas some cannot.b) Three regular polygons can tile a plane, resulting in regular tessellations. Severalother regular polygons can be combined to create semi-regular tessellations.c) Tessellations are based on shapes creating a precise 360-degree angle around apoint, with no gaps or overlapsd) Tessellations are common both in real life (such as floor tiles) and in art.e) Creating a new tessellation is based on distorting a basic geometric shape: triangle,quadrilateral, or hexagon.4. Class Activities:a) Begin class by dividing students into groups of four so they can use the cutoutpattern blocks they prepared.b) To introduce the concept of tessellations, refer to the “around-a-point” activity thatstudents discussed in depth during the prior session. Have students recall which onecolourpattern blocks could be used to surround a point. Ask which of those wereregular (equilateral, equiangular) shapes.Do students realize the distinction between the three regular polygons (green)equilateral triangle, (orange) square, and (yellow) regular hexagon versus the (blue)rhombus and (red) trapezoid?(Note that even if the blue rhombus and red trapezoid are not regular polygons, theyare still quadrilaterals and as such, with reorientation, can tile a plane.)c) To extend their around-a-point experience, introduce the terms tessellation andtiling the plane, defining them as necessary to make sure students understand thattessellating shapes cannot overlap or have gaps between them.