Working with Tangrams

The other day we were at our favorite educational toy store, Constructive Playthings/U.S. Toy, and I found a set of tangrams that I bought for Nicholas to try. They are just geometric shapes that the child fits into patterns on a card. Sounds simple but I think it is a great workout for the brain. The box calls them "geometric brain builders" and says that they wire kids brains for important problem-solving.

I wasn't sure if Nicholas would get excited about tangrams or not. However, with his recent interest in puzzles I thought it was worth a shot. He was so excited when he saw the box that he didn't even want to wait for me to open it and read the directions. He started working on them right away and made it up to level 3 without a problem.



At one point, I read the card which said that the shapes would make a rhomboid. He said, "That's not a rhomboid! I'll show you what that shape is." Then he ran off and came back with a shape puzzle that Grandmother Chance had given him when he was one year old. He pulled out the parallelogram and put it next to the rhomboid and said they matched.