Playing with Kolam Tiles

I attended a wonderful math art workshop that went over the tradition and art form of Kolam. Siddhi Desai and Deepa Bharath had a wonderful presentation and activities to draw on dotted paper to create amazing designs. I look forward to playing with rice flour designs this weekend. One take away that I loved was that the tradition for some is to welcome a new day. I really love the mindfulness that comes with this form of art, math, and presence.

They also referenced two of my favorite math activities. One is the Mathigon Polypad and the other is the book “The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity“. Using the Polypad this year was a favorite for students, including the Kolam tiles on the app.

This week I created a printable version of the tiles. I also experimented with hexagonal version (this is just a draft). My kids had a fun time playing. I love the similarities of Kolam with some of the knot activities I do with students (from dot paper to tiles). I love to think about how many generations have created such wonderful patterns in so many cultures. I look forward to doing more hand-drawn Kolam.

At the bottom of this post are the PDF files. Contact me if you need SVG or other formats.

Here is a space to draw your own (click to turn the draw on/off. Press any key to clear the canvas.

Here is a PDF of the squares:

kolam_squareDownload

Here is a pdf of the hex files (draft):

HexKolamDownload