Can You Make A Square?
Primary (Age 6 – 9)
Curriculum Goal
Primary: Geometry and Spatial Sense
- Compose and decompose two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional figures.
Context
- Students and teacher will be sitting on the carpet in a circle.
Materials
- One set of Tangrams for each student (Appendix A)
Lesson
- Introduce students to Tangrams and tell them that they will be making squares using a set number of Tangram pieces.
- Before starting the activity, prompt students with questions such as Is there more than one way to make a square using x number of Tangram pieces? This type of question provides an opportunity for students to challenge themselves to create more complex composition plans.
- Have students try making a square with one, two, three, and then four Tangrams. The biggest challenge lies in creating a square using all seven pieces.
- Ask students to come up with as many different combinations of Tangrams as they can to make squares. Examples can be seen in the image above.
- Note: you may want to consider creating an anchor chart with pictures of the squares and the number of Tangrams used to make each square. Students could photograph each solution and compare their solutions to those of their classmates.
Look Fors
- How do children compose and decompose a square using Tangrams?
- What strategies do children use to create squares with more pieces?
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