Tangram Benefits
Tangram is an ancient Chinese game that was invented in the early 19th century. It is also known as the table of wisdom or table of the seven elements. Its use offers numerous benefits, including learning math and developing intellectual skills, as well as developing imagination and creativity.
The Tangram
Tangram is an excellent educational game that develops the creativity and imagination of children and adults. It consists of seven geometric pieces called Tans: five triangles of three different sizes, a square and a parallelogram. These seven pieces form a square.
By combining these pieces and a little imagination, we can make countless geometric figures. It all depends on our ingenuity and imagination. The only rule of the game is that all pieces must be used.
If we want to get an idea of the figures that can be formed with Tangram, there are guides and websites that offer a wide variety of models. However, the ideal is to stimulate our imagination. With a little creativity and patience, we can create animals, people, objects, letters…
Tangram Benefits
Tangram is a good educational resource for teaching different mathematical subjects. Likewise, it is also a game that stimulates imagination and creativity, both in children and adults. Its use contributes to the development and improvement of aspects such as:
- Attention and concentration.
- The development of psychomotor and intellectual skills.
- Visual memory: the child must observe the model and then reproduce it. In this way, the development of memorization is promoted.
- Allows you to train visual-motor coordination: hand-eye coordination.
- Visual perception: some visual stimuli are interpreted and differentiated from others.
- Orientation and spatial structuring: the child learns and relates some objects to others in relation to their position (above, below, left and right).
Likewise, Tangram:
- Contributes to the formation of abstract ideas.
- Promotes the ability to discover things on your own.
- Allows you to reach conclusions and generate your own knowledge.
- Develops the ability to reflect and reason to arrive at a solution.
- Favors patience and ingenuity.
Tangram as a Mathematical Resource
As we mentioned earlier, Tangram can also be used as a resource for teaching different math subjects. For example: geometry, algebra or combinatorics.
The manipulation of the pieces allows composing and decomposing different geometric figures, building others and establishing relationships between them. Likewise, through Tangram, it is possible to learn infinite mathematical concepts ranging from Kindergarten to Higher Education. Among them are:
- Measure, describe and classify angles.
- Recognize congruent figures.
- Define the concept of congruence.
- Calculate areas of polygons and figures of different types.
- Measure perimeters of polygons and figures.
Some activities for the little ones
Furthermore, Tangram is considered a great stimulus to develop creativity and imagination. In addition to working with mathematics, through Tangram, we can also build and invent stories. Since this game offers the possibility to create numerous figures, it also offers the possibility to create great stories.
- Invent silhouettes. The objective is the manipulation and creation of figures, so that the child explores the different possibilities of the game. It is possible to start with two or three pieces and build up. Once the figures are made, their outline can be drawn on a piece of paper. Likewise, it is also possible to color.
- Telling stories. With the help of adults, children can create pictures of animals, people, invented objects, etc., to create stories. In this way, the child’s creativity and imagination will be promoted.
Later, the silhouettes of the figures can be used for coloring and cutting. Thus, the development of psychomotor skills will also be worked on. This, in turn, will also serve to recreate history.
Finally, if you want to make your own Tangram, here is a link to a video that explains the process in a very simple way. Good luck creating lots of pictures!
