Grandfather Tang's Story

This story, simple on the surface, embeds a major moral of loyalty to friends in a gripping morph thriller.

This book is NOT for babies and pre-schoolers! This creative story shows children how to use a puzzle set of math manipulatives called Tangrams to create pictures. It could be used in ANY grade to improve children's comprehension of spatial relations. A pattern for the tangrams is included in the back of the book to make teaching easier. Any child would love to play with these picture puzzles!

I use this book annually to introduce tangrams into my geometryunit. The information from the back of the book adds a multiculturaland historical dimension to the lesson while the relationship between grandfather and granddaughter offers an intergenerational link. Reading the book in an interactive mode, I use my own renditions of Grandfather Tang's animals mounted on poster boards and flipped over to be uncovered as the story progresses. The kids are completely engaged trying to guess what the next fairy transformation will be before it's revealed. By the end of the book, they are excited to create their own tangram pictures to form into a class book. The soft watercolor illustrations are a balanced contrast to the energy and enthusiasm Grandfather Tang's Story generates with my class.

This is is an excellent book!I am a teacher and use this book with my 3rd and 4th grade students to teach tangrams and fractions! Children will enjoy the cute story and beautiful pictures!