Tangram pieces are a fun way to get kids familiar with regular and irregular geometric shapes and flex their creative thinking skills. Below are a few examples of what you can do with tangrams!

Look for the lines that divide each piece and think about how they fit together. Look at the photo below - what do you think this group of shapes looks like? I think it looks like a man out for a jog.

The square on top is the 'head.' Next is a large triangle that makes the 'body' of the man; the long side should be attached to one corner of the square. Further down is also a large triangle, whose short side is halfway aligned with the 'body' triangle. These are the 'legs.'

There is a small triangle to the left of this large triangle - let's call this a 'foot.' Further down are medium triangles and a parallelogram, both of which have their long sides aligned with the long side of the 'legs' triangle. Make sure the short side of the parallelogram doesn't go past the 'legs.'

When putting together these tangram pieces, think about what they can look like as a whole!

How else could we put the pieces together? Let's give it a try.

Put the shapes together like in the photo below. They look like a kangaroo, don't you think? You can see the square head, the triangle and parallelogram ears, the triangle body and legs, and the two little triangles that make an arm. There are a million ways to put these tangram pieces to work, and your child will love to play around and discover for themselves. We here at CretaBlog are all about making learning fun, and we hope you enjoy!