Tessellations: A Curated Lesson of Free Resources

This blog post is designed as a lesson, you can follow the links and use them directly with your kids to teach about tessellations. I placed the article links at the top because I did not find any video’s that adequately covered what a tessellation is, so make sure you start at the top. I read through articles, watched videos, and made sure links to printables worked before choosing the best of what I could find to share with you. I have also tried to limit resources to a reasonable number. (Nothing bothers me more giant lists that need intense whittling down before entering the realm of usefulness.)

Table of Contents

Read About Tessellations

Math Salamander Tessellations

Cool Math Tessellations

Some of the explanation in the following link is a repeat of what was covered in the previous two links, however, there is a link at the bottom, Tessellation Artist, that takes you to a free program where your student can draw their own freehand tessellations. You can skip to the second link if your child understands the concepts and just wants to explore the drawing program.

Math is Fun Tessellation

Tessellation Artist

Look at Tessellations

You can click on any of these animal pictures to pull up a graphic of the image in a tessellation.

Animal Tessellation Art

Biography of M.C. Escher, an artist who was fascinated with tessellations.

The Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher

Print, Color, & Draw Tessellations

Super Teacher Worksheets Tessellations

Chose a Coloring Page

Draw a Tessellation on Tracing Paper

A video lesson for drawing a chameleon tessellation

A video for drawing a tessellation (requires basic drawing skills, although the concept could be used with younger kids to make geometric tessellations):

Draw a Chameleon Tessellation

Print your own tessellations, (for serious artists)

If you have an art student you may want to watch this video, it is an interesting way you can make print tessellations. It does require some specific supplies but is fascinating to watch even if you decide not to do the project. It will cost about $45.00 to get started, but if you have a budding artist who wants to try it, most of these supplies can be reused. (Supplies she mentions are linked below for your convenience. No affiliate links.)

Print Tessellation Art