Mandalas

Here are a selection of the many marvelous mandalas that my students created.  Most of these took nearly two weeks to complete and some are still not done!

This lesson is a pefect way to integrate math and geometry.  This lesson also fit right in with our multi-cultural unit because mandalas are a big part of Indian culture.

The process was quite simple:

I introduced the concept of a mandala (which means circle in Sanskrit) with a power point.  We looked any many beatiful examples including a Tibetan san mandala..  We also talked about radial balance and symmetry.

After the slide show, we created a template for the mandala using a compass, protractor, and a ruler.
We did this together and I used the document camera to model the steps.  The outer circle is 11 inches and I instructed students to make at least four more circles inside using the compass.  Then we used a protractor to divide the circle into 12 equal sections..
The students did surprisingly well with this part. (Compasses are not that easy to use!)

Stdubts used the template to create their own unique radially balanced design.