At Little Scientists, we’re passionate about the power of creative mathematics experiences to engage young children in STEM in a way that is inclusive of their learning styles and interests. Maths is more than just numbers — child-led, hands-on artistic explorations not only make mathematical concepts more accessible for children (and adults too), they can support children to build their confidence in maths and develop their creativity and problem-solving skills.
Read on for creative mathematics activities that ignite children’s curiosity about patterns, geometry, and symmetry. Don’t forget to share your own maths explorations with us! Join Little Scientists’ Facebook group “Early STEM Educators Network” to exchange STEM ideas with educators all over Australia.
Explore geometric artworks
There are many famous artworks you can find online for children to explore geometry in an age-appropriate way. For example, artists like Kadinsky, Escher, and Mondrian utilise colourful tessellations and shapes that you can use to spark mathematical conversations with the children, like “Where does this spiral end?”
After giving the children time to marvel at the artworks, prompt the children to think about:
🌀 What shapes can the children see in the art?
🌀 Can they create artworks inspired by the artists?
🌀 What are different ways of recreating the shapes in the artworks? For example, the children might want to free-hand draw, use different shaped blocks, or explore geometry sets including compasses, protractors, and set squares to recreate shapes.
The aim is for children to freely explore shapes and consider how they come together in an artwork, rather than create an exact replica.
Craft patterns in mandalas & mosaics
Another way to explore mathematical concepts with children is to dive into the patterns of mandalas (circular patterns that are usually symmetrical) and mosaics (often artworks arranged using glass, tiles, or paper). The good news about these creative artforms is that you don’t need to buy additional art supplies and can instead use recycled and natural materials. Here are some ideas to get your children started in exploring patterns:
🎨 Take the children to a local park and invite them to collect natural materials that might be useful in creating mandala-like artworks. Ideas for materials include dried leaves, flowers, grass, and feathers. This handout from the Victorian Government is a useful starting point to see the types of mandalas that are possible!
🎨 Encourage the children to explore your setting for items they can repurpose for mosaics and mandalas, such as blocks, scrap paper, and puzzle pieces. This Facebook page is full of inspiration to support children to explore patterns using bottle lids! NOTE: Watch for choking hazards and choose larger lids.
These are wonderful experiences for all ages, from young babies through to school-aged children and beyond. As children’s understanding of patterning and other mathematical concepts, such as symmetry, becomes more complex, so too will their creations.
Create symmetries
You’ve probably already explored butterfly paintings with children. Why not explore other art-based symmetry experiences? A simple collaborative activity is to have one child draw or paint a picture on one side of a piece of paper, then have another child recreate the same picture on the other side. You can make this experience more complex using the idea below:
Materials:
🪞 A3 pieces of paper with a line drawn in the middle.
🪞 A materials buffet of everyday items, such as blocks, lids, bread tags, twigs, leaves, and stones.
🪞 Coloured pencils, oil pastels, markers, or paint.
Method:
- Have the children lay items from your materials buffet on one side of the paper’s centre line.
- In pairs or groups, encourage the other children to try to draw the items on the other side of the paper in a symmetrical pattern.
- Extend this by challenging the children to explore different types of symmetries, including reflectional, translational, and rotational.
Develop your STEM skills with pedagogy-based STEM PD:
- Browse our in-person STEM workshops.
- Browse our online STEM workshops.
- Browse our online STEM Hours.
- Book an in-service workshop for your team.
- Book a STEM Family Workshop for your families.
