World of Tan 22 - An appealing stroll
Can you fit the tangram pieces into the outline of the child walking home from school?
Age
7 to 11
Challenge level
Problem
This activity follows on from World of Tan 21 - Almost There Now.
Little Ming and Little Fung are slowly walking home from school. The new term is only a few days old and already the children are getting back to their old ways...
Little Ming: Why does a school day feel so much longer than a day over the weekend?
Little Fung: It depends whether or not you're enjoying yourself.
Little Ming: Well I spent all morning measuring things, who could get excited by that?
Little Fung: I'm more interested in things that can't be measured in obvious ways.
Little Ming: How do you mean?
Little Fung: Well, we can measure length, height and width...
Little Ming: As well as mass, volume and temperature...
Little Fung: I know, and there's also time, angles and capacity! You and I can measure most things and we can read most measuring instruments. It's all the things we don't have instruments for that I want to find out about.
Little Ming: How do you mean?
Little Fung: Well how do you measure how clever someone is?
Little Ming: How do you measure stubborness?
Little Fung: You've got it!
Little Ming: I suppose you can measure strength or weakness?
Little Fung: Yep, just as you can measure speed and acceleration or density.
Little Ming: Can you measure different degrees of wetness?
Little Fung: I'm not sure. I know when I am damp, and I know when I am soaking wet...
Little Ming: Yes... Last night was fun, but we shouldn't have cooled down by standing in the fountain - someone will have seen us and they will tell Granma T!
Little Fung: Come one, let's stop dawdling - it's almost dinner time, we need to get a move on!
In the meantime, complete the silhouette of Little Ming carrying his backpack and dawdling on his way home from school.
Extra activities:
- List some of the things that you can measure and the different instruments that you can measure them with.
- What can't you measure? Why?
The story continues in World of Tan 23 - Transform This Into That.
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?