How to Make a Tangram

What You Need:

• 6 ½-inch square sheet of card stock
• Colored felt-tip pens or pencils (six or seven different colors)
• Scissors
• Glue
• Tangram templates and pieces

What You Do:

1. Print out a sample template and a set of pieces.
2. Ask your child to color each segment in the template a different color.
3. Ask your child to carefully glue the template to the card.
4. When the glue is dry, help your child to cut out the tangram pieces.
5. Jumble up the pieces and see how quickly your child can make a square from the pieces.
6. Mix the pieces up again and see if he can improve his assembly time.
7. Mix the pieces up again and see if he is able to make a rectangle.
8. Ask your child to make other pictures using the pieces.

Try playing other games with your tangram. Here's one idea: make a second tangram set. Give your child one set, and arrange the other into a shape. Challenge your child to arrange her set into the same shape.