Grandfather Tang's Story

Author: Ann Tompert

Publisher/Date: Crown Publishers, 1990

ISBN: 0-517-88558-1

Grade Levels Recommended for Use: 6-8

Brief Summary: The story is about a grandfather who tells his granddaughter a story using tangram pieces. The story is about two animal friends who change shape. As the grandfather tells the story he creates the different animals using tangrams.

Topics: geometric shapes, spatial reasoning, perimeter, problem solving

Suggested Activities:

1. Read the story Grandfather Tang's Story. Have the students create the animal shapes in the story. The teacher can create the same animal shapes on the overhead and the students can duplicate them.

2. Discuss the mathematical names of each tan, square, triangle, parallelogram.

3. Have the students put the tangram pieced together to create geometric shapes such as parallelogram, trapezoid, square, rectangle, hexagon.

4. Have the students create a shape using all seven tangram pieces. Carefully grace the shape on paper. Have the students measure the perimeter of the shape. The students will do this in standard and metric measures.

5. Have the students draw around each tan gram shape and label the different angles. Right angle, obtuse, and acute.

6. Have students use any number of tangram pieces to create a five -sided figure. Can they remove one piece so that their figure still has five sides, six sides, three sides, or four sides.

7. For a center activity. Place different tangram animal shapes in a center. For enrichment have students place their tan gram pieces on top of the blank shapes.