Loved this activity I did with my kiddos this week! I read the above book to my kids and had amazing discussions about generational differences, cultural differences, and so many other things! Then we moved into our math lesson. We have been studying 2D shapes for a week now and this is sort of the culmination of your studies this week. 🙂 I always try to tie in some type of picture book with each unit. I thought about tangrams and how they can be made into a perfect square. I thought!! Oh yeah! Quilt square time!!
I made up the following project along with my students. I first had my kids build their square puzzle from the eight tangrams. Many of them struggled to make a perfect square. They were able to make rectangles and composite figures but really struggled with the perfect square. We had many conversations about growth mindset during this activity. I then placed them with partners to try and build and perfect square. After about 10 minutes of good struggle I showed them pictures of square puzzles they could build. They built their squares, traced, and started designing their quilt pieces. Below you will find the project. They will complete the remainder of their project at home for homework next week.
It ties in social studies because I am asking them to tell a story about their culture and self using their pieces.
- Designs should tell a story about you
- Your culture
- Examples include: hobbies, family, religion, sports, etc.
It ties in math because they have to take their shapes and pick two options from the list below:
- You must do two of the following activities:
- List attributes describing our shapes (ex: parallel sides)
- Brainstorm a list of classifications based on your shapes (ex: triangle)
- Venn Diagram comparing/contrasting shapes
- Chart which sorts your shapes
- Tables which sorts your shapes
- Hierarchal Tree Diagram
- Written description of shapes (3 or more sentences)
Feel free to use this with your class! Change the project to meet the needs of your standards! I think this is a great masterpiece built by me and my kiddos. Pictures to come next week of our projects! I can’t wait to share! 🙂
breedlove4math 