Opportunities to combine, rotate, and compare shapes will help children develop understanding of part-whole relationships within and among shapes (as when two identical right triangles are combined to make a rectangle).
© Erikson Institute’s Early Math Collaborative. Reprinted from Big Ideas of Early Mathematics: What Teachers of Young Children Need to Know (2014), Pearson Education.
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A tangram puzzle consists of seven pieces — five triangles and two quadrilaterals made from one square. Tangrams originated in More →
This child successfully attempts to match geo-solids using triangular prism-shaped blocks. Focus on the Child videos are taken from one-on-one interviews with individual children. The interviews are designed to elicit evidence of children’s mathematical thinking. They are not teaching episodes or formal assessments.
Instructor Lisa Ginet explains how to make tangram puzzles, an ancient Chinese game made from seven shapes cut from a square. Over 6500 different arrangements can be made from these seven simple shapes!
This pre-k English Language Learner uses gesture to articulate math ideas while putting together a shape puzzle.
A child composes a 6-pointed star shape using pattern blocks in multiple ways.
A student uses blocks to recreate arrangements of shapes.
A child builds structures using magnetic blocks.