Fun with tangrams

I have recently rediscovered and been enchanted by tangrams.  What an amazing discovery!  They have a fascinating history, and so many uses, from story telling, understanding area, puzzle solving, and more.  I stumbled across a fantastic book, Math games and Activities.  It has several tangram worksheets like the one I cut out and laminated on construction paper below.

My husband had a hard plastic tangram from high school that we played with, but it was very slippery on the lamination, and as I thought about what else I could use, I discovered that the foam sheets that I had purchased from the dollar store were the perfect size!  I traced a tangram on all six colors, and cut them out to make a very attractive set.  I also cut out all of the exercises in the book, as well as a double-sided set of puzzles that I found here.  These made an excellent Christmas present for our extended family.

I am amazed at how versatile tangram activities are.  Some of the puzzles have challenged me, and yet my daughter who is not yet two has been able to do outlined puzzles.

There are a lot of creative ways that I have seen tangrams used, such as for breakfast, on felt, or in a homemade book format (scroll down to see this one).  Have fun!