Tangram Puzzle - 2nd Grade Math

This semester, I am taking Math Methods as part of my Teacher Education program at Fort Hays State University. Earlier in the semester, I taught a mini lesson during my math internship class to a group of excited 2nd graders. The kids loved the lesson and I learned a great deal about the power of modeling when teaching a hands on concept. 

The lesson was an introduction to the 2nd grade geometry unit. 2nd graders need to be able to, "Recognize and draw shapes having specified attributes, such as a given number of angles or a given number of equal faces. Identify triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons, and cubes," (Kansas Common Core Standards for Mathematics). So, my lesson objective was to have the students be able to reassemble the tangram puzzle,  organize the tangrams by similar shape, create larger triangles from the tangrams and assemble a square from 2 or more tangrams, receiving at least 8 out of 12 points. To do this, the students were given 6"x 6" pieces of construction paper and then I walked them through the process of making their own tangram puzzle. 

As the students worked on their tangrams, I asked them questions about the shapes like, "Which shapes are similar?" and "Can you create a larger triangle using smaller pieces?" 

The students completed this lesson during math stations, so each group I worked with was about 4-5 students. At another station, the students read the book Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert. This book is about tangrams and partnered nicely with the tangrams activity. 

A few weeks later, the students began their geometry unit that is part of their regular curriculum. The tangram activity was a nice introduction and allowed the students to think about the relationships between shapes.