Scaling Tangrams

BatBoy loves tangrams and tangram puzzles.  Over the years though, our sets have a few pieces.  When it was suggested that was play with tangrams as part of Chinese New Year celebrations, it seemed like a good excuse to make a new set.  SpiderGirl also wanted to make a set for herself.

Enchanted Learning has a page on tangrams and how to make them.  They do it by folding.  Since we have graph paper, though, it seemed like a good time to introduce scaling diagrams.  We scaled the template on the website by a factor of 4.  The kids did their own multiplication. 

Then they glued the graph paper onto cardstock and cut out their new tangrams!  They made some zodiac animals off the Enchanted Learning page and did some puzzles from Fun O Rama.

How, Not What, to Think

BatBoy has for the past year or so been very keen on matchstick puzzles.  I picked up a book of them at Chapters and he often likes to work on them while SpiderGirl has her classes.  One day, we were with a good friend as BatBoy worked on the puzzles, and our friend wanted to engage with him a bit -- which is great!  And she did what people often do when they help someone with a puzzle:  She figured out the answer in her head, and then hinted at what the solution was.  Of course, he then quickly figured it out and went on to start another puzzle. 

What Have We Learned This Year?

As I complete weekly reports throughout the year, I ocassionally purposely slip in a little math, just for the record.  But really, this year, I had been feeling that we hadn't done a ton of math.  SpiderGirl never mastered the multiplication tables, worked much with area and volume, or advanced in fractions, all things that had been on her learning plan.  BatBoy has been exploring many mathematical concepts, but still, not much to go into a report.  So I thought.  When I began working on their final reports for our Distributed Learning school, I realized just how much they have learned this year.

Puzzle Books

Having embraced the idea that my kids are pretty right-brained when it comes to learning math, I feel more comfortable introducing problems that would normally be several "steps" ahead of where they are.  Enter into our lives:  the Maths Quest series by David Glover. 



The Museum of Mysteries focuses on number manipulation.