Tangram & basic concepts of geometry
We are going to make a tangram set by folding, unfolding and cutting shapes out of a sheet of paper. We will be looking at some of the characteristics of these shapes, as well as the relationships between them.
Step 1
Start with an ordinary rectangular sheet of copy paper. Fold the right side of the sheet of paper onto the bottom side .
You should have a four-sided shape called a trapezoid. It has one pair of opposite sides parallel ('bases'), the other two sides are not parallel ('legs') .
Cut the little rectangle that’s not covered up and discard it.
The remaining folded piece forms a triangle .
We call such a triangle :
- an isosceles triangle because it has two equal sides (sides that are of equal length).
- a right triangle because it has a right angle
