Celebrate St. Patrick's Day this year by creating mosaic shamrock art with your child. She'll explore spacial relations and repeating patterns as she arranges her shamrock cut-outs into a unique design. Introduce her to the work of famous artists such as M.C. Escher and the technique of tessellation to give her inspiration for her own design.
Did you know? A tessellation is a pattern of shapes that fit together without gaps or overlaps. Play around with the shape of the shamrocks to see how well you can get them to fit together!
What You Need:
- Construction paper in green, white, and another light color such as beige or pale yellow
- Scissors
- Glue
- Small piece of cardboard (optional)
- Shamrock stencil (optional)
What to Do:
- Have your child draw several shamrocks on the white and green paper. She can either draw free hand or use a template or stencil. To make the template, draw a shamrock onto the cardboard and cut it out. Trace around it to use.
- Have our child cut out the shamrocks from the construction paper.
- Ask your child to arrange the shamrock cut-outs in a pattern on the light colored piece of paper.
- Help your child glue the shamrock cut-outs in place. Set aside to dry completely.
Erica Loop has a MS in Applied Developmental Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Education. She has many years of teaching experience working in early childhood education, and as an arts educator at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.
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