One of the fun as well as educational Summer activities for children is using Tangrams, a mathematical puzzle game. As the name sounds, it is an intellectual Chinese puzzle with seven flat shapes called tans consisting of five isosceles right triangles (two big, one medium and two small ones), one parallelogram and one square. In Chinese, this puzzle is called as "Chi-Chiao Pan" meaning "the seven intriguing pieces". Out of these seven pieces, except parallelogram all other pieces have reflection symmetry but parallelogram has rotational symmetry meaning that it has to rotated to obtain its reflection symmetry. The Eighth Book of Tan by Sam Loyd is a popular tangram puzzle which is said to be originated 4000 years ago has many shapes including puzzles that are impossible to solve.
Objective of the Tangram Puzzle :
To form a specific pattern or shape using all the seven flat pieces together. These can includes people shapes, geometric shapes, animal shapes and many more basic to complex patterns.
Tangram as a teaching tool :
Tangrams for children helps in teaching them all about shapes, ratios and basic geometry. Tangram puzzle also helps in improving their mathematical skills configuring different ways to solve the puzzle and also helps in improving their concentration skill.
TANGRAM PUZZLE/SHAPE TEMPLATE
With Tangrams, we can form people puzzle, animal figures, basic shapes and may other pattern. The options are endless.
Artwork using Tangram shapes with kids
- A4 Craft Papers (or any plain papers) - 6 [ for creating 2 tangrams on 1 background - one each for my 2 kids]
- With the given template, create four such tangram shapes on four of the papers and cut them as given in the above image. Keep the rest two A4 papers for the background ( I used maroon for the background).
- Let your kids colour the tans using crayons or use plain tans as per their interest. My daughter loved to color whereas my son went for the plain ones.
- Ask the kids to align a specific shapes guiding them with your own tans. Give them ample time to form the shape on their background paper.
- Finally let the kids apply gum on the backside of their tans and stick them onto the background paper without moving the created tangram shape and let it dry.
The Hare and the Tortoise
The Woman and the Man
Kids find these seven-piece tangram puzzle shapes interesting and fun letting them to play for hours creating variety of shapes and patterns. Also, kids can come up with new forms of figures and pattern naming it as bear, lion and so like they do with the clouds in the sky. With tangrams, the options are endless for creating number of designs , plain or colorful and thus keeps the kids as well as the parents entertained.