Today we created Optical Illusions with one of my fifth grade classes. Some students loved this project, but others found it very hard. Unlike most of my art projects, this one involved using our mathematical brains. These look really cool when all of them are hung together on the wall.
To create these, we started with a square piece of paper. First we drew a grid using rulers. Then we traced three circles onto the grid. Now for the hard part, color in every other space black. This seems easy, but it really takes thought. When you get to the circles, you may not be coloring the entire square, but a small piece of the square. No two black spaces should touch each other. There are some mistakes in these, but they still turned out awesome.
I did not come up with this lesson myself. I found it on one of my favorite websites, Oodles of Art.