Three Pigs, One Wolf and Seven Magic Shapes by Grace Maccarone is a mathematical take on the classic fairy tale.   Students are introduced to tangrams in this leveled reader.   The pigs use the seven magic shapes to form solutions to the problems they encounter.   Students will enjoy using tangrams to recreate the figures in the book as well as creating their own tangram figures for classmates to solve. 

• Download the Seven Magic Shapes Templates that show individual pieces so that young students can position tangram pieces correctly to form the characters in the book.   These templates were designed to be used with commercial tangram pieces. 
• Download the Seven Magic Shapes Shadow Templates  that show black shapes so that students must figure out how to position tangram pieces correctly to form the characters in the book.   These templates were designed to be used with commercial tangram pieces. 
• Download the Tangram Shapes Template that can be used to create tangram pieces to use with templates above if commercial tangram pieces are not available. 

These activities help students develop spatial sense as they manipulate tangram pieces to form the figures in the different templates.  Students will also enjoy this retelling of a classic story.

Differentiation:  Teachers may use either set of templates to accommodate the varied needs of learners in the class.  Some students may need to begin with the first set that clearly shows each piece; other students should be challenged to form figures on the shadow templates.

Enrichment:  Challenge students to form their own original templates or supply additional tangram figures to challenge students.  NOTE:  Some young students have great difficulty solving tangram puzzles when they are supplied with a small figure commonly found in tangram books.  Teachers may form the figures on oaktag, trace the pieces then blacken the whole figure to create a template.  Make several copies of the templates for classroom use.