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.

How do you build spatial reasoning, critical thinking, and problem solving skills while doing something that is fun? With tangrams! In honor of Chinese New Year, this lesson introduces your students to the Chinese puzzle of tangrams.

Allow your students to explore the pros and cons of different strategies used to find the area of rectangles. Use this as a stand alone lesson or as a pre-lesson for the Multiplication and Area in the Community Garden lesson.