Pattern manifests itself in many ways through properties such as symmetry, repetition, translation, and illusion. This guide, appropriate for use with grades 6-12, presents patterns that are formed entirely by straight lines, yet appear to contain or be formed by curves. Exploring these geometrical shapes offers an opportunity to discover various…

This book contains transparency masters, duplication masters, and activities for teaching tessellating art. Part 1 gives instructions and information for creating transparencies from the paper masters in this book. Part 2 provides the transparency masters along with detailed instructions about when and how to use each of the transparencies.…

Mathematics can be used to analyze musical rhythms, to study the sound waves that produce musical notes, to explain why instruments are tuned, and to compose music. This book explores the relationship between mathematics and music through proportions, patterns, Fibonacci numbers or the Golden Ratio, geometric transformations, trigonometric…

This book explores a class of geometric patterns called tessellations, a pattern made up of one or more shapes which completely cover a surface without any gaps or overlaps. Focus in on one of the more elementary types of tessellations and investigation of them through concepts basic to art, geometry, and design. The seven chapters look at which…

Discusses the use of flexible straws for teaching properties of figures and families of shapes. Describes a way to make various two- or three-dimensional geometric shapes. Lists eight advantages of the method. (YP)

Provides four activities asking students to observe and classify star patterns and to identify polygons and continuous paths while observing similarities and differences. Presents the objectives, directions, extensions, answers, references, and worksheet for each activity. (YP)

The activities presented in this guide are designed for elementary age students, and intended to provide hands-on, integrated learning experiences. A learning station format is indicated for open ended activities which include a "Preliminary Activity: Free Exploration First!", an "Introductory Activity: Architect/Builder", and…

Explores the following classical problem: given any 30 points on a circle, join them in pairs by segments in all possible ways. What is the greatest number of nonoverlapping regions into which the interior of the circle can be separated? Presents strategies for solving this problem. (PK)

Four activity workshops are suggested which might be used for several different purposes. The reproducible worksheets address clock patterns, patterns with tides, extending Pythagoras, and fractions extended. (PK)