World of Tan 12 - All in a fluff
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outlines of the rabbits?
Age
7 to 11
Challenge level
Problem
This activity follows on from World of Tan 11 - The Past, Present and Future.
Little Ming and Little Fung rush home from school. It is the first school day of the new month, and it doesn't seem long until the holidays now. They are particularly excited because tonight they are going to help Granma T and the rest of the team. Previously they had been too busy with homework, class projects and preparing for the new tests to help with all the business that had come and gone through the yard. Tonight it will be different.
Tonight they are helping to move the local rabbit farm from its present location down by the rice paddies up to Ding Wood. It has to move because more space is needed - there are too many rabbits with not enough to feed off.
Chi Wing is waiting by the van, counting on his clip board as the empty rabbit travel cages are loaded by Wai Ping. Wu Ming has attached the long trailer to the van. Granma T is already at the wheel and ready to go.
Now that everyone is aboard, Granma T can slowly ease the vehicle out of the yard and off to the farm.
It is chaos at the farm: the rabbits are all running round in their paddock; none of the helpers at the rabbit farm are anywhere to be seen; some of the newly ordered hutches are not made up yet; and the family are overwhelmed by their predicament.
Granma T explains as firmly as she can that the move has to take place tonight, as it will be another two months before all of the team will be available again. Besides, there is almost five hours of good light still left - plenty of time to sort everything out!
Over a soothing cup of tea, a plan of action was made. While the adults stacked the hutches onto the trailer, the children's job was to quietly catch the animals and place them very carefully into their travel cages, supervised by Mah Ling.
Within an hour and a half everything had been completed. All of the rabbits were safely loaded - even the three large Angoras had at last quietly submitted to being handled and were ready to go...
In the meantime, complete the silhouettes of two of the rabbits that were successfully and carefully caught.
Extra activities:
- Have a go at this activity about some different types of rabbits.
- Survey your friends about the pets they have. Can you find different ways of showing this information?
The World of Tan continues in World of Tan 13 - A Storm in a Tea Cup.
Teachers' Resources
Why do this problem?
This problem is an engaging context in which pupils can consolidate their knowledge of the properties of squares, triangles and parallelograms. By attempting this activity, children will be putting into practise their visualising skills, making guesses about where the different shapes might go before trying out their ideas. When combining the shapes to make the tangram, pupils will use their understanding of translations, reflections and rotations to decide how to transform each shape. There are also links between tangrams and fractions, and children can be encouraged to work out what fraction of the whole square is represented by each smaller shape.Possible approach
Read this story with the whole class and look at the tangram as a group. Ask pupils to suggest where a shape might go. What transformation would be needed to move the shape into that position?When pupils are solving the tangram, they would benefit from working in pairs with a tablet or a printed copy of the shapes to cut out and move around. Working together will lead to rich discussions about the possible options for where each shape can go. When the children have solved the tangram, they can have a go at the extra activities.
At the end of the lesson, bring all of the pupils together and model the solution on the whiteboard. How does each shape need to be transformed? What fraction of the whole picture is each shape?
Key questions
What could you put with this piece to make a square?Are all of the pieces different?
What's the smallest square you can make?
What has to go in that space? How do you know?