We continued to investigate how shapes are related by creating smaller squares out of large ones. “Combien de petits carrés dans un grand carré ?” We began by taking a Post-It note, folding it in half, and cutting along the fold to make two smaller rectangles. The children laid the rectangles on top of each other and noticed that the halves were exactly the same size. Next, we cut the rectangles in half to make four even smaller squares. We continued to fold and cut until we were left with 16 tiny squares that could be pushed back together like a puzzle to recreate our original Post-It note.
A few students suggested that if we had started by folding the square from corner to corner instead of lengthwise, we would have created two smaller triangles. We got more Post-Its, and this time, experimented with cutting the large square into a set of tiny triangles. C’est une bonne idée, les amis !
Have a great night!