Easy Tangram Puzzles: Draw the Lines for 2 and 3 Pieces

Four cards fill this kindergarten page. Each carries a small strip of piece shapes along the top and, beneath it, one empty white outline drawn true to size against the full tangram set. Two of the four outlines are made from two pieces and two from three, so the difficulty changes inside the page rather than between sheets. Nothing is coloured and nothing is cut: the child works with a pencil, drawing the line or the two lines that show where the named pieces meet inside the outline.

Drawing the seam is a different act from placing a piece, and it is the one that carries over into reading shapes later. To draw it the child has to decide which way round a triangle sits, and that decision is forced because the outline gives only the perimeter. The strip above names the kinds of pieces at a smaller scale, so it says which shapes to use without saying where. Every outline on this page is one the lattice can tile in a single way, so a drawn line is either right or it is not.

One sheet, four outlines, six seams in all. This is the gentlest page in the tangram family and the right one to give before the shadow sheets, because the piece count is small and the strip removes the guessing. Keep a cut set nearby: a child who is stuck can lay two real pieces on the outline and trace along the join.