Moroccan Mosaics

My third graders just completed these Moroccan Mosaics. We looked at an example on the SmartBoard and I drew lines of symmetry to show how the pattern rotates. Next, each student got a precut and primed piece of cardboard-I just cut up cereal boxes and was able to get four from each box (two from each large panel). I showed them how to lightly draw lines of symmetry and glue one precut foamie in the first quadrant. I asked them to rotate the cardboard and put the next foamie in the exact same spot. After repeating that with the final quadrants they could move on to the next color, leaving a tiny bit of the white showing to represent the grout lines. I asked the kids to stick to squares or triangles and showed them how to create a triangle by cutting the square from corner to corner. Many of the results are stunning!

I actually did a similar project many years ago, as a new teacher. Instead of using Moroccan Mosaics as inspiration they just did a flower and we used unprimed cardboard. They used small bottles of puffy paint between the foamies to represent the grout. I liked the results of that, but it took about three times as much puffy paint as I thought it would. It became a pain to run to the store almost nightly for more white puffy paint!