In Birch class we use mandalas to help with developing a mindfulness practice, to encourage fine motor skill when colouring and to introduce patterning. This week as we explored two dimension shapes using pattern blocks, students began to spontaneously create mandalas on their own. As I walked around the room listening to them talk the students were discussing how a mandala is a growing pattering. Some students also began to discover the relationship between the shapes. “Two triangles make a diamond, and that’s why they fit together in this layer of the mandala.” Another student remarked, “Three triangles make up a trapezoid.”
