Tangrams and tiles
Make pictures from shapes; fill space with no gaps.
A puzzle from long ago
A tangram is a square cut into 7 pieces. There are 5 triangles, 1 square and 1 parallelogram. You can make hundreds of pictures!
Regular or irregular?
A regular shape has all sides equal and all angles equal. An irregular shape does not. A square is a regular quadrilateral; a rectangle that is not a square is irregular.
Fitting together
Shapes that fit with no gaps tessellate. Squares, triangles and hexagons tessellate. Circles do not – they leave gaps.
Shapes in art
Look for shapes in Islamic tile art, nakshi kantha and rickshaw art. Artists repeat, turn and flip shapes. Build 3D shapes too: straws and clay make a cube.
What I learnt
- I can make pictures by putting shapes together.
- I can tell regular from irregular polygons.
- I know which shapes tessellate.