Since the arithmetic contents make the largest part of mathematical contents in class teaching and the success in acquiring basic arithmetic terms depends on the teaching methods significally, the first part of the paper shows different approaches to forming basic arithmetic terms (natural number, counting, relations on a set of natural numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). The central part of the paper deals with modular arithmetic which defines introducing congruence relation on a set of integers. Modular arithmetic can be used to create artistic patterns: an m-pointed star, an (m, n) residue pattern and patterns created by using addition and multiplication tables for least residues modulo m. A workshop Design ideas through arithmetic was organized and conducted for the purpose of the thesis. Participants were fourth year students of the Faculty of Education, Slavonski Brod branch and seventh grade students of primary school Ivan Goran Kovačić from Slavonski Brod. Student works – patterns created by using addition and multiplication tables for least residues modulo 6 have contributed to achieving the goal of the paper: to show that by combining knowledge about basic mathematical operations, congruences and plane isometries little p ieces of art can be created.