This is a very successful project and one of the few projects that I actually teach every single year.  The kids love doing it and they always turn out gorgeous.  Plus, it's a great math and art connection!

Before beginning, we do a little lesson on radial symmetry (symmetrical in many ways from the center).  I help them remember the name because it radiates out from the center.  Radiate-radial.  Knowing that, the students will create their paper designs in a repeating patter, radiating from the center.  We also learn about relief sculptures.  A relief sculpture is a type of sculpture that is flat on one side and generally hangs on the wall. 

So to set themselves up for success, they begin with a 12" x 12" squad pieces of black paper and fold it as shown below.  Doing so creates creases where it was folded.  These become the guideline to help create a symmetrical piece of artwork. 

Now, before beginning the really fun part, I usually spend about 30 minutes or so prepping the small colored paper squares for the project.  I use a cutting board to cut a ton of 3" x 3" squares of all different colors.  This way they are prepped and ready to go and I don't have to think about it again.

To teach the students the folds, I actually like to show them the video I posted below.  This allows me to pause, rewind, restart as much as possible and it's awesome because it is a large image for the kiddos to see and learn from.

After learning the basic folds, the artists have a great time creating their designs.  They overlap the paper, insert them into each other and glue them down to create unique and colorful designs.  This year when I taught this project, I had them stick to a color palette of 3 or 4 colors.  I love how they turned out with a limited color palette and so did the artists.

A winning project for sure and one that the kids always love the process and the end result!

To explore religions of the world through art, the 5th grade students looked at and discussed images of doorways and windows of different religious and spiritual places of worship.  We looked at images of churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, etc etc. 

For this project, students selected a type of religious architecture to draw inspiration from.  After studying images, the students created their own multi-layered decorative drawing inspired by the architecture of that religion.


It is difficult to see in these pictures, (in fact, these pictures do not even begin to do the amazingness of this project justice) but the students built a sort of relief sculpture for this project.  Their drawings are all on three layers of paper, with parts cut out so that you can see down into the layers.  Each layer is held up by foam mounting dots.  Doing this really created an extra dimension (literally, no pun intended) of interest.