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What Is a Tessellation?
A TESSELLATION is a pattern of shapes that fit together perfectly with NO gaps and NO overlaps, like puzzle pieces that cover an entire surface.
Only three regular shapes can tessellate all by themselves: squares, equilateral triangles, and HEXAGONS.
Square tiles on a bathroom floor? That is a tessellation! Triangles fitted together in a pattern? Tessellation! Hexagons in a honeycomb? The most amazing tessellation in nature!
You see tessellations everywhere: brick walls, tiled floors, soccer balls (which have hexagons and pentagons), pineapple skin, and turtle shells. Nature and humans both love patterns that fit together perfectly!