3 Ways to Add Art to Your Math Classroom
Adding art to your math class will not only add color and fun to your classroom but also give students the opportunity to show their creative side as well as possibly help reduce their stress and anxiety. Best of all these activities will give your students a chance to remember math concepts in a different way.
Fractions, Decimals & Percents Art Grid
Give your students a square grid (10 x 10 works well) to color. Next, have them choose 5-7 different colors to create a design on the grid. After they finish, have them calculate each color's fractional, decimal, and percentage amount. This is a simple and fun way to practice converting fractions, decimals, and percents. Challenge your students by creating larger grid designs.
Graphing Art
This is one of my favorite way to add art to your classroom walls! This stained glass style technique will give your students a chance to show off their artistic skills all while practicing important graphing topics. There are many ways to do this type of art.
A blurry picture of the wall outside my classroom (2013!) with graphing art!
In this art activity students will use a list of linear equations to graph. Students will then go over their graphed lines in black markers (sharpies work best) and color the spaces in between the lines with different colors. The result is a beautiful stained glass style of art and looks very cool displayed in your classroom (add a black piece of construction paper behind the graphing art to really make your students’ work pop).
You can differentiate this graphing art in many ways including:
Give your students 6 up to 12 linear equations to graph depending on what type of challenge students need. I find using an even number of lines is best.
Have students use systems of equations to find solutions through graphing. Then have them turn their graphs into art.
Have students use sets of parallel and perpendicular lines.
Challenge students to create their graphing art using linear equations they come up with.
You can do this graphing art with graph paper you have on hand, but if you are looking for this project with lines chosen intentionally as well as practice writing different types of linear equations then you need to grab my graphing art bundle here. You can also test out this bundle with my free graphing art option here.
Create Art With Song and Performance
These next ideas remind us that art can be more than just visual. Art can also be musical or theatrical.
Have your students create a song or a puppet show to explain a concept that you just finished covering. I have had students do this to explain different types of slope as well as a way to remember integer rules. Not only were students remembering these concepts in a unique way they had so much fun working together to create art.
My slope mini project has everything you need to have students create a song or puppet show on the different types of slope. I guarantee your students will never forget the types of slope after this fun mini-project.
I also just want to quickly give a shout-out to my Math Vocabulary Menu resource in which students will have the option to create different types of art (as well as other writing options) using math vocabulary. Some art options include creating a social media post, a comic strip, or writing a song using vocabulary words. The best part is that you can have your students do any one of these options using any math unit you are currently teaching.
These ideas give students who are more mathematical to stretch their creativity and students who are more creative to think about math in a different way. I hope you are able to find an idea that you will use in your classroom this school year.
