Tangram Puzzles: Count the Triangles and Squares

Four small tangram builds sit on this kindergarten page, each one made from three to six pieces and each standing over two dashed boxes. The first box carries a little triangle mark, the second a little square mark. The child counts how many of the build's pieces are triangles and writes the number, then does the same for squares. At least one build on every sheet is turned so a triangle sits on its slant rather than flat, and at least one contains the parallelogram, which is not a square and does not go in the second box.

Naming a shape when it has been rotated is the real content, and it is why the builds are tilted rather than set square to the page. The second box is the harder of the two: a tangram set holds exactly one square, so the answer is always nought or one, and a child who has only met counting as finding something has to write nought when there is nothing. The parallelogram is on the page to make that answer earned rather than obvious.

One sheet, four builds, eight numbers. Read the instruction with the class first, because it asks for the pieces the build is made of, not every triangle the eye can find inside it: two small triangles side by side still count as two. This is the counting face of the tangram family, and it pairs well with the cut-out page, where the same seven pieces are named by colour.