Mondrian Style Fibonacci Art

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I am fascinated by the golden rectangle and the fibonacci series of numbers there are so many amazing patterns in math. If only I had learned or cared more about that as a kid I might have enjoyed math a bit more!  My goal with my kids is to help them see and appreciate the different amazing mathematical patterns and possibilities. One way I do that is with lots of hands-on creative educational projects, like today’s post. Today I share with you how we combined math and art to make Mondrian style Fibonacci art.   

When you teach kids math in more creative ways, they are more likely to be interested in it. Math tends to be one of those subjects that so many kids hate, yet it is so important and useful in a million ways in their future careers.

I wanted to combine this math project with an art lesson today to really grab my kids’ interest. We talked about Mondrian and I showed them this painting of his. Mondrian was a Dutch artist who created a lot of abstract geometric art work and many of them feature the golden rectangle.

I thought it would be cool to first create the golden rectangle then paint it. The golden rectangle is a rectangle where each section is the sum of the next two smaller. For instance the smallest square is one inch and there are two of them. Combined they make two inches. The next square is 2 inches in size. The next square is 3 inches, then 5, 8, and 13. This pattern was made known by an Italian mathematician called Fibonacci. You may recognize it more as the golden spiral. This pattern is found naturally in so many things!  It is amazing to study.

We used our large roll of graph paper to do our Mondrian/Fibonacci art, but with a ruler it could be done on any paper.

The kids painted the outline of the golden rectangle. Then painted inside each of the squares in the style of Mondrian with the primary colors.

They were proud of their finished product and had such a great time doing it and learning about the two different men in history.

This is part of the A-Z Guide to Understanding STEM series from Little Bins for Little Hands. Check it out for more fabulous STEM ideas for every letter of the alphabet.