learning geometry shapes Archives

Stencils are an easy and fun way to engage in creative art projects with your kids. They can be made out of cheap materials you probably have at home and used more than once. Using shapes to create geometric art is a beautiful way to find the art in math! In this post I will explain how to create some shape stencils for your kids and how to create some math art with them. I will also give you a fun follow-up activity with questions to help sneak in some math skills and vocabulary. An easy math art project that can be used for quiet time and as a bonus, it is fun and relaxing for adults too!

Creating your shape stencils for your math art project

The first step is to create some stencils! If your kids are old enough they can definitely help with this part too! Here are the materials you will need:

Materials to make stencils:

Scissors
Pencil
Paper/poster paper/construction paper
Self-adhesive laminating paper (optional)

I made stencils out of paper that I laminated because that is what I had at home at the time. You can use thicker paper or if you don’t want to laminate but would like to reuse your stencils here are some great options:

Old waterproof/leakproof tablecloth or placemats
Plastic sleeves (the sturdier the better)

Materials for your math art:

Colors (paint, markers, crayons…)
Paper/Canvas/Construction paper/Cardboard box (anything to draw on)
Pencils

Steps to create easy shape stencils:

Decide how many and how big your stencils will be and create a grid on your paper*
Within each space draw or trace a shape
Cut along the grid lines
If you are planning to laminate your stencils go ahead and do that before cutting out the shapes. If you are using waterproof or plastic material skip this step
Cut out your shapes

*If you are planning to use normal paper and have a printer at hand you can use my free template. It has all the shapes ready to go! Just print, cut, and laminate. For added fun print them on colorful paper! Click on the image to get the pdf:

Math art project with DIY Shape stencils

How to create math art with your shape stencils:

Now that you have prepared your stencils, have your child choose some shapes to start their project
Have them use the stencils to fill their paper by just tracing within the stencil but not coloring it in
Have the shapes overlap and turned around in different positions for fun effects
Let kids explore and use their imagination to create beautiful designs. They can try for patterns, abstract art, or create objects or sceneries
Once the paper is full of the outlined shapes or the design is finished, have your kid color the spaces between shapes! Colorful or monochrome… there are many possibilities to explore!

Math Talk

Depending on your child’s age you can sneak in some math skills and vocabulary through questions. Here are some suggestions to get the conversation going while you admire the art:

Can you see any parallel/perpendicular/interescting lines?
What shapes do you see the most?
Can you find any right/obtuse/acute angles?
Are there any complementary/supplementary angles?

Math Art Gallery Follow-up Activity

If you are doing this in a classroom or with more than one kid you can showcase your childrens’ art and have some fun answering these questions and talking about art as you walk around the room. Just like in an art gallery! Get all dressed up, role play, make it fun and you will find your kids having fun with math!

Store those lovely stencils and make sure to reuse them to create more beautiful math art projects with your kids!

More Fun Activities and Games:

String art is such a great way to practice fine motor skills and sneak in some math skills. It is also a lovely project that involves creativity and can keep your kids entertained creating something beautiful. Using rainbow colored yarn/string gives it that extra touch of color! But unfortunately we did not have this at home which gave us the perfect chance to expand the project and practice some DIY and color mixing! Replacing materials with stuff you have at home is a great practice for resourcefulness and modeling this for your kids is a great way to teach them to work with the resources they have. So in this post I will explain how we prepared some rainbow colored string and will then describe the string art project itself.

Rainbow String Preparation

We didn’t have any rainbow colored yarn or string at home, but we did have food coloring so I thought we could try and color some string with it. The results were not exactly the same as the store-bought one but it added a new layer to the project and it was also fun to do!

Materials

Food coloring
Plastic cups or containers
Water
String or yarn

Coloring String

Prepare the cups with water and food coloring. We poured about 2-3 fingers of water into the cups and squirted some food coloring into it until we got a color we liked. Perfect time to practice color mixing! We ended up with seven cups: blue, purple, green, red, orange, yellow and black. Next we added the string to the cups, we kept the string connected and just used each color once. You could probably go back and forth, feel free to experiment! Then leave the string to soak up the colorful water. In our case we left it a couple of days, our string took a very long time to soak up the water, but we kept checking it once in a while. This is how the preparation and what the end result looked like:

Once the string was out and drying we used the colored water to play a bit, stretching this project out even more! We combined colors and poured them into different containers which is quite entertaining for toddlers. Once the rainbow string is dry you can start the string art project!

String Rainbow Art Project

Materials

Some sort of base: wood, corkboard…
Nails, toothpicks (make one side blunt if they are both pointy!), or straight pins
Rainbow string or yarn
Hammer if you use nails and wood

String Art Project

**Younger children should be supervised around pins, toothpicks, and nails, which have sharp points and are choking hazards.**

The first step in this project is to create a grid. Grab your base and place the nails/toothpicks/pins to make a grid. If you are using a corkboard you might want to double it up if it is too thin. We actually used an old corkboard that we didn’t want to cut up and just placed it over open boxes to give the toothpicks space to go through. Find what works for you.

For the grid, depending on your child’s age you could let them measure and mark the grid points themselves or mark them beforehand. Have your kids place one nail/toothpick/pin on each grid point. Use a smaller grid for younger kids and increase the size for older kids. My daughter enjoyed placing the toothpicks more than playing with the string!

Once the grid is set up, allow some free play. Explain to your kids how to weave the string and give them some time to experiment weaving the string and see what happens. You might need to help toddlers and guide the string with them a bit. It is the perfect time to talk about shapes that appear as they play with the string. This is definitely enough for toddlers. They practice their motor skills and you can talk about the shapes they create as they experiment.

Sneak In Some Math

For older kids, you can try to sneak in some geometry. Start off by asking your kids to create as many different shapes as possible. Then you can challenge their mind a bit! Here are some suggestions:

On a 3×3 grid, how many (same size) triangles can you fit into a square? What about a 4×4 grid?
On a 4×4 grid, how many (same size) rectangles can you fit into a square?

Divide a shape up into smaller shapes (check out the photo below) and then ask your kid how many squares/triangles/rectangles they see. Ask them to do the same for you.

Playing around with shapes like this is great to give kids a feeling for geometry and even fractions!

Time For Creativity

Once your kids have played around with the string and explored the world of shapes, you can ask them to create their own design if they are still interested. To do so, draw the grid on paper first and ask them to draw something (a heart, a star…). To replicate the design with string use nails/toothpicks/pins to create the outline of your design. Then weave the string through them. Experiment with different designs and create some beautiful string art!