Each student needs:

• a tangram set (all seven pieces)
• pencil and paper for tracing
• to hear Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert

Procedures:

1. Students complete one or more of the student tasks.
2. Read Grandfather Tang's Story to the students. Using tans create, trace and enlarge a copy of the different animals shown in the story. Use them as you read or tell the story to the students. They work well as a tool for predicting the animals' next magic change.
3. Students become more involved in the story if they work to create the animals mentioned as the story progresses. Stopping to dialogue about the strategies used will allow all students the opportunity to create the animal characters. Reproducing a frame of the figures at the actual size of the tans allows for the support needed by some students in creating the animals if they are having difficulty.
4. Stopping at a certain point in the story, have students create the animal described without seeing the visual or frame. Edges may touch and pieces may meet at points but the tans may not over lap. All of the tans are to be used.
5. Tracing the outside edge of these animal figures creates a "puzzle" of sorts. Students may exchange figures and discover alternate ways to create the same shape. Students may also trace their puzzle on the reverse of their sheet this time adding the lines that separate each of the tans as an adaptation for those students looking for a "hint" when solving the puzzle. This may also be used later as part of a center activity. Students record their solutions for creating the figures on paper or in notebooks. Students may wish to compare or contrast their puzzle with the one shown for the given animal in the story.

Big Questions:

• What strategies do you use for deciding which tan pieces are used to create each figure?
• How do you decide which tans will not work in certain situations?
• How might you record your guesses?

CELs: CCT, IL

Closing:

• Students continue to create a variety of figures and challenge their peers to recreate them.
• Students create their own "task cards" using different numbers of tan pieces and requiring different properties (i.e.: number of sides)

Objectives:

• P-2 design a plan and solve problems using one or more of the following strategies a) use manipulatives; i) guess and check; k) make a systematic list; m) make a chart or table; o) eliminate possibilities
• P-6 judge the reasonableness of the results by a) reviewing the problem and process used
• P-8 create problems similar to those solved
• G-14 trace and draw two-dimensional figures
• G-16 combine two-dimensional geometric figures to make other figures
• G-18 match congruent (same size, same shape) two-dimensional figures
• G-19 make congruent two-dimensional figures