I love working with radial designs in my art room. I usually work with kaleidoscope designs with my second graders and radial/mandala designs with fourth graders. Most mandala designs are symmetrical. The meaning of “mandala” comes from Sanskrit, meaning center or circle. The design usually begins in the center and branches outward.
"Mandala Maker" is a web 2.0 tool that allows anyone to create a mandala design online. This can be a great addition to my introduction to my lessons on mandalas/radial designs. On this site, students can use geometric shapes to design 1/8 of their mandala. This is a great pictorial illustration of fractions. Students have options to change colors, rotate the scale and skew the shapes. Once the students feel that they have completed their design or just want to take a peek at their design as a whole, they can press view design. This is when the magic of symmetry begins! Students will begin to “Oooohhhhh!” and “Aaaahhhh!” at what they have created but they will not be satisfied just yet! Now the curiosity kicks in and students will continue to play around by clicking “Continue working”. Who would have thought!? Eventually students will finally become satisfied with a design and it can be e-mailed to themselves or to someone else. I can definitely use this as warm-up project prior to their detailed hands-on art project.
Not only is this a great art lesson, it reinforces many concepts that are taught in our Everyday Math series and allows for cross-curricular teaching, which is a huge push in my district. Grade level teachers really appreciate the additional practice with terminology being taught in math. A few mathematical topics that will be revisited as a result of this activity include geometric shapes, symmetry, fractions, patterns, and measurement (height/width). This web 2.0 tool is not only an engaging introduction for an art project, but it is educational and enjoyable.
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