Printable Pentominoes

In our kindergarten classroom children enjoy spending time working with math manipulatives 
that encourage playful explorations with shape in a variety of ways. One of our favourite tools are 
versatile pentominoes.

Pentominoes are polygons made of five, equal-sized squares connected edge-to-edge. There are twelve 
different pentominoes in one set. You can purchase pentominoes from educational resource stores, or 
print paper copies on card stock and laminate for children’s use here:https://bit.ly/2wtFt0d

There are many reasons why pentominoes are an essential math tool for any early childhood classroom. 
Pentominoes:

1. are gamelike in nature and promote a positive attitude towards math

2. encourage cooperation and collaboration among children 

3. Promote math thinking in a variety of areas including spatial reasoning (logic when solving

 puzzles, symmetry, reflection, rotation, design), measurement (considering the area and perimeter 

of designs), and number sense (counting the number of tiles or squares in a design, calculating the 

total number of squares using the anchor of 5)

 We have used pentominoes in many classroom activities. To see what we've done and follow our math journey, follow us on twitter @McLennan1977. Share your favourite pentomino activities in the comment section below!

Environmentally Friendly Puzzles

We put out puzzles today made from the fronts of cut up cardboard food boxes.

The children enjoyed the challenge of putting together puzzles without a picture or guide to help them with the finished puzzle. 

If you have any interesting food box tops to donate for this center please send them in for us to explore!

Puzzle Experts

"It was so easy to build. We just matched it like a matching game."

A puzzle record!  These boys created the 60 piece puzzle in under five minutes by working together!

Puzzles

Puzzles, puzzles...everywhere!

Co-created Colour Wheel

The kids have been very interested in rainbows lately - I think their thoughts are turning to spring! We decided to explore the colours of the rainbow using found materials in our art area.

After cutting out a large circle from bristol board, I helped them divide the circle into sixths. We designated each section a specific colour and then began gluing what we found.

We used magazine cutouts, pompoms, beads, popsicle sticks, recycled caps, feathers, buttons, paint chips, stickers, pipecleaners and anything else that matched and fit into the colour collage! What I especially love about this display is that it can be mounted on our wall as a reference for colour. Unlike mass produced, colour bulletin board kits that can be purchased from teaching stores, my kids have a vested interest in the colour wheel because they created it. Through the process of finding and sorting objects by colour, they are aware that each has many shades. For example, blue can look many different ways and is not just the blue depicted on a colour poster. 

So in addition to helping us learn about colours, this activity promoted creativity, refined fine motor skills, encouraged mathematical thinking like sorting and puzzling, developed oral language, and instilled a sense of pride and ownership in one's work. 

Beautiful! It's going to become a permanent fixture in our art area after I leave it out on our table for a few more days to see what else is added to it!

Recycled Puzzles

We love using found and natural materials in our learning experiences at home and school. Here is a wonderful way to recycle an old food box that I learned from my friends at the Parenting and Family Literacy Centres.

First cut the face off a food box. I like to use products my children are very familiar with.

Cut it into random puzzle-type pieces.

Encourage your child to fit the pieces back together just like he or she would with a commercially bought puzzle.

Celebrate and do it again!

This activity can be repeated with any product packaging and is a great way to infuse a little math into your daily activities! So easy!

Moving from Concrete to Abstract Representations of Structures

Building is a big deal around here. Wanting to continue using our back door as a space for learning, I encouraged the kids to build with the foam 3D shapes. 

It was interesting to see the natural puzzling that occurred as Caleb tried to fit the pieces together. Cadence was more interested in building castles.

I wanted to help move their thinking from concrete to abstract, so I took a few of the sponge blocks, and together with ink pads, encouraged the kids to either replicate their designs on paper, or create new ones.

It was amazing to see how intricate the design became as more stamping was done!

Wow! Pretty impressive for a three year old!

Pentaminoes

Some boys were hard at work putting the pentaminoes together! Look at their great creation!

Pentaminoes

Pentaminoes are complex 2-D shapes that are composed of five squares. The fit together like a puzzle and children can use them to make interesting designs. We like them because they can be manipulated in so many ways and they really require children to problem solve when trying to fit pieces together. Our pentaminoes arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon so children were quite excited to use them this morning. It was interesting to observe children as they worked together at the center; often when a piece wouldn't fit with the exising puzzle the children had to manipulate a variety of pieces before they all fit properly. It really requires a lot of concentration to work with pentaminoes!