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Copyright © 3P Learning – These resources have been created in partnership with Dr. Marian Small.
For more information visit
www.mathletics.comQuestions to facilitate the learning
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What did you decide about three squares? Why?
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Would a different number of squares have worked? How many?
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Which worked — 1 triangle and 2 rectangles or 2 triangles and 1 rectangle? Why?
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What number of triangles, besides 3, would have been possible? Why do you think that?
Scaffolding the learning
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Suppose you drew a line straight down; what shapes would you make?
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Could you make 2 squares? How? What does that tell you about making 3 squares?
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How can you cut a rectangle to make triangles?
Extending the learning
Students might describe as many other ways as they can to cut the rectangle into 3 or more shapes.
What’s the point of this task?
Composing and decomposing shapes is a critical part of geometry. In this particular activity, students use
their visualisation skills to predict how the original rectangle can be cut; this is important since visualisation
is a useful tool in the study of mathematics. Students also think about names of shapes, different
orientations of shapes and properties of shapes.
Cut It Up
Geometry