Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
Make patterns, and turn a pattern from one form into another, using movements, sounds, objects, shapes, letters and numbers. The museum offers shapes from the art and buildings of the Islamic world to make a pattern from; the movements, sounds and numbers are for your class to bring. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- C1.2 create and translate patterns using movements, sounds, objects, shapes, letters, and numbers
2 The lesson
How can the same pattern be made in another way?
Make a pattern with objects, then make the same pattern with claps or with a drawing. Say what stays the same.
Go deeper
Look closely at an arabesque. In it a leaf is never left alone: it always stays joined to its stalk, as an addition to it or at its end. The stalk may wave, spiral or interlace, and it may pass through a leaf or come out of it again. This is how the Encyclopaedia of Islam describes the arabesque 2.
Think about it
Imagine you draw a pattern of leaves, and every leaf must stay joined to a stalk. What must you do each time you add a new leaf, and why would the pattern look different if the leaves could float alone?
Into the museum
- The arabesque: the leaf pattern whose leaves grow from their stalks, and what the Encyclopaedia of Islam says about it.
- Islamic geometric patterns: patterns of stars, polygons and grids on buildings and art.
Try this
Look at the museum's record on the arabesque, pick circles, triangles or squares, and make a new pattern with them.
3 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Arabesque have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Circles, triangles and squares in a network. Yeomans describes the undersides of the arches of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, where a vine leaf and other plant forms fill networks of interlacing circles, triangles and squares. Choose three of these shapes and make a pattern of your own from them, with objects or with a drawing.
I can now