TANGRAM

 Hello everybody! We're back with one of the most popular board games in history - can you guess what it is?

The tangram! Did you get it right?

Well, that's the least of it. The important thing comes now, let's get started. The tangram is a very old puzzle that first appeared in China, and although it has no definite date, it is said to be more than two thousand years old! This puzzle is made up of 7 different geometric pieces, among which we find two large triangles, a medium-sized one, two small triangles, a square and a parallelogram. 

With these pieces, the aim is to create different figures or images by moving and combining pieces, trying a multitude of possible combinations that the use of such a variety of pieces allows us to do. Here you can see several examples: 

And although in this image you can see how to make the different figures, how you have to combine the pieces, the good thing is to make them from the figures without clues, so that you can also work your mind. That is why, many times when you buy the game or search on the internet, you only find a simple silhouette, from which you have to stop and think, try to move the pieces in a thousand different ways over and over again until you get to make the figure.  

For example, if we start from the square, which is the initial position of the figures and we want to make a turtle, we would have to make several changes: 

1. Join the two large triangles and turn them into squares. 

2. Place the square as the head. 

3. Place the two small triangles as legs, either front or back. 

4. Finally, place the parallelogram and the medium triangle as the corresponding legs. 

And once that's done, it would look something like this: 

And you, can you think of any other way to make a turtle? If so, you can post it in the comments so that we can all learn a little more. 

On the other hand, it also allows us to work with area and perimeter, and not only individually, but also by comparing and trying to relate the different figures in a manipulative way, thus facilitating the work and the acquisition of this knowledge, which can perhaps be a little more complicated. 

Have you ever used the tangram to study? I haven't, but I would have liked to, as I think it gives a lot of options and would have made my learning more fun. 

I hope you have learned a lot today and that you will be encouraged to play tangram - see you soon!