Concentric Circles

Concentric circles are all around us, in things we make, like tin cans and in nature, inside trees. They are a type of parallel curve, you can learn more about parallel curves in our article about them.

For circles to be concentric, they must have a constant distance between them, which is the same as them having the same centre. In the image below, we can see some concentric circles on a grid.

Identifying and drawing concentric circles can be a fun activity for children to try. There are lots of examples of concentric circles that children can find; some are shown in the images below.

In the image below, we can see some beetroot slices where we can see the individual xylem and phloem “ring” shapes, forming concentric circles.

In the image below, we can see a tree slice with concentric circles. These circles are irregular and not perfect, so it may be slightly more difficult for the children to see the separation between the lines.