How can I use this resource?

With these templates of moth or butterfly motifs kids can lay gapless tesselations à la Escher. The moths are colored in, cut out, and glued together to form a large interlocking puzzle – a project that’s wonderful for collaborative work!

What does this resource contain?

This resource contains templates of an illustrated moths and a blank moth silhouette, each in 3 sizes.

What are tesselations?

In math, we use the term ‘tessellation’ to describe a surface that consists of shapes fitted closely together without gaps or overlapping. You see this in everyday life where use simple, uniform shapes in a repeated pattern to cover a surface, such as parquet floors, wall tiles, paving slabs or mosaics.

The genius graphic designer M. C. Escher (1898 - 1972) developed this technique further, using uneven shapes to create fantastic works of art. He drew ‘tiles’ that weren’t square but rather they were shaped like reptiles, birds, plants and even sometimes people, which always interlinked without gaps. The construction of such a tessellation with a ‘cyclical division of surfaces’ is a complicated, mathematical undertaking. In order to create such a picture, all of the identical tiles have to be be placed next to each other so that they fill the area without gaps and overlaps... just like the motifs in our templates!