This activity can be extended to include work with fractions and ratios by assigning unit values to different shapes. Students can make their own tangram puzzles. Connections with literature and other cultures can be made by exploring the historical background of the tangram puzzle. Examples of Student Learning Working in small groups, students make boxes from pieces of paper and explore relationships. They have available to them a myriad of materials and manipulatives, including grid paper for graphing and cutting, cubes or beans or rice or candy bits, graduated cylinders, tape, and scissors.
Students try to find the box with the largest volume, and the smallest volume.
As they work with the materials, students explore different relationships as they convince others that their box holds the most. 3-dimensional figures made from wood by the grandfather of one of the students. First they observe and feel the differences, then verbally compare the objects in cooperative groups. Students are asked to construct shapes in any way they wish. The shapes to be constructed are cubes, cylinders, triangular prisms, rectangular prisms, and spheres.