Grids – Making Art with Math

As we are getting ready for the Moebius Noodles display, we continue to be on high alert for great ideas that introduce grids to children. So I was really excited to see an art through math activity for young children on one of my favorite blogs,  The Educators’ Spin On It.

The idea is to use grids to help make a copy of a picture. Inspired by a local chalk art festival, Amanda of the Educators’ blog decided to create chalk art with her children. The results are beautiful and Amanda documents the entire process with wonderful photographs (which she so generously allowed me to use in this post).

Amanda notes that even toddlers can participate in this activity. And the idea lends itself easily to customization based on your child’s interests. Amanda chose a picture of the beautiful St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow to reproduce. Your child might be more interested in something else (I’m pretty sure that mine is going to ask for either WALL-E or a Star Wars clone trooper).

You can also choose a different art medium – paints, crayons, markers, even thumb prints (hey, that would be a fun idea to try). Or, if your child has a favorite picture that’s very large (say, poster-size), you can try making a smaller version of it.

Thank you, Amanda!

If you haven’t yet, do read Amanda’s entire post, get inspired and try it this weekend! When you do this activity with your children, take pictures. You can upload them to Facebook and share them on our page. Or you can post them to your blog and link to the post on our Facebook page or in the comments.