Mandalas: Concentric Circles

I talk about concentric circles with my 2nd grade students every fall.  We talk about how concentric circles are many circles with the same center, and I show them images of mandalas from all over the world.  I also tell them that they are sacred and tell the story of a special place of the artist. 
Next, they start designing their own mandala, using ice cream lids as the outer circle, and other round containers to make more circles.  Students also pick up quickly that all of the mandalas are cymmetrical (the same on both sides.)  They also use templates and other objects in the Art room to add geometric shapes (the ones with names: circle, square, triangle, etc.)
Here are some amazing artists:

Roller Coasters!

Students in kindergarten and 1st grade talked about the many different kinds of lines they saw: straight, curvy, zig-zag, thick, thin, diagonal, vertical, horizontal...the list went on and on!

Here are how they decided to showcase their many kinds of lines:

Environmental Education day!

Today at Five Hawks Elementary, it's environmental education day! 
Requirements: teach some of your lessons outside and incorporate learning about the environment!

Here are a few pictures from my 3rd and 4th grade projects.  We talked about lines and how you can see all different kinds in nature.