Last week we made some Optical Illusion Christmas ornaments for the tree. The results were so groovy that I had to share them here!
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Making Op-Art Ornaments with Kids
This post contains affiliate links. This means I make a tiny bit of grocery money from each purchase made. Thank you for your support! For my full disclosure policy, click here.
First, a little background:
The idea for these ornaments came from Karyn Tripp’s Math Art and Drawing Games book. Karyn blogs over at Teach Beside Me and she's also a fellow contributor to the STEAM Kids book series. I received a copy of her book and I loved it! Karyn shares tons of easy art projects that help kids explore different math concepts.
We were particularly intrigued by her Optical Art Illusions activity and since it was Christmas, we turned our math-y, art-y creations into ornaments.
1. Draw a large ornament shape and use a ruler to draw a bunch of intersecting lines.How to Make Op-Art Paper Ornaments:
2. Draw smaller shapes inside. (Like circles, or squares, depending on the optical art illusion that you are trying to create.) Karyn shares a ton of designs in her book.
3. Color your designs! (Aesthetically, I love drawings with bright, vibrant colors and thick outlines. However, I feel like these ornaments weren't that great at tricking our eyes. The single colored ornaments appeared to be better examples of optical illusions... what do you think?)
Not a fan of drawing? You can just print out my doodled ornaments here.
Not a fan of drawing? You can just print out my doodled ornaments here.
4. Cut out your ornaments and punch a hole in the top. Tie it with string and hang them on your tree.
And that's it! Groooooovy!
