Lesson Plan
Composing Shapes
Students will love composing and decomposing two-dimensional shapes using tangram puzzle pieces. Use this plan alone or to frontload key vocabulary and concepts taught in the lesson plan **Know Your Shapes.**
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Objectives
Academic
Students will be able to use basic shapes to create composite shapes.
Language
Students will be able to describe the attributes two-dimensional shapes and the steps to create composite shapes with content-specific vocabulary using hands-on materials, visuals, and peer support.
Introduction
(5 minutes)- Ask students to give you a thumbs up if they have ever done a puzzle. Show a few examples of different puzzles.
- Tell students that today they will be using pieces from a special type of puzzle called a tangram. Define tangram as an ancient Chinese puzzle that uses shapes to create different pictures. Explain that "ancient" means that these puzzles are very old, and were created a long, long time ago. Display the tangram Vocabulary Card.
- Instruct students to turn and talk to a partner to name as many different shapes as they can. Tell students that some of those shapes are part of a tangram puzzle.
- Tell students that today they will practice being "shape detectives" who search for shapes hidden within other shapes.