When I stumbled upon tangrams in Pinterest, my heart skipped a beat. I'm a sucker for modern geometric designs, so when this is combined this with a maths puzzle, well I'm seventh heaven! Literally seven as it goes; a tangram is a square cut into seven pieces - triangles of various sizes, a square and a rhomboid. You are given an outline of a shape and you have to rearrange the pieces to make to the shape.
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| A square is cut into 7 shapes, called Tans, which are arranged to make the shape of the puzzle. |
Fun Puzzle
Sounds easy right? Hmmm, well I thought it was a simple kids game, but they are surprisingly tricky! My partner Robbie scoffed at me, but was stuck for ages on the butterfly and claimed the rabbit was 'messing with his head'. Kids (and grown-up kids!) should be kept occupied on car rides and through the summer holidays with these puzzzles.
Serious Educational Clout
Behind the fun, tangram teach lots of mathematical concepts, problem solving and logical thinking. Indeed it's been said that if you gave a child no other maths instruction bar Tangrams for one whole year, they would be more advanced mathematically than if you followed the regular maths curriculum. Maths Education happened to be one of my uni courses and I well believe the results found in the research - having fun with Maths is definately the secret.
What you’ll need:
- The free Silhouette compatible cut file
- Silhouette CAMEO
- Printable magnet paper or regular card
STEP ONE: Download File
Download the Silhouette compatible free cut file, and open the file from within Silhouette Studio.
STEP TWO: Print and Cut Tangram
Select your page size, print and cut with either printable magent paper or regular card. You'll notice that the cut lines are slightly inset from the coloured shapes. This is a trick I often use when cutting a printed image where the colour goes right to the edge as it affords you a little wiggle room when the Silhouette scans the registration marks.
STEP THREE: Print Puzzles
I've added the puzzle sheet as a PDF and JPG if you like the colour palette and want to print out immediately. I've also added them to the cut file incase you would like to edit the colours, size or positioning.I recommend this site for more puzzles, but a quick google search will bring up many more.
http://www.tangram-channel.com/
FINISHED PRODUCT
DESIGNS USED:
The free Silhouette compatible cut filePRODUCTS USED:
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Great post - pretty AND educational!
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