Pattern blocks

Questioning is the foundation of all learning.
The first step in rejecting not knowing is to ask, why?
Sweetland

Overview

Introduction
The blocks
Meet the blocks
Patternblock activities
Introductory activities
Meet the shapes
Similar shapes
Angles
Album

Introduction

This page includes an introduction to pattern blocks, their relationships to each other, some sample problems, and picture album.

The blocks

The six pattern blocks — Pattern block sets are multiple copies of these six shapes:

Meet the pattern blocks

A standard set of pattern blocks includes six distinct geometric shapes, each color aids recognition and spatial reasoning. The shapes are a

Yellow hexagon,
Red trapezoid,
Green equilateral triangle,
Blue rhombus (parallelogram),
Tan/beige rhombus, and
Orange square.

They are designed to fit together, with all sides measuring the same length except for the longer side of the red trapezoid.

They are an excellent play resource and tool for learning mathematics, developing visual spatial reasoning, problem solving, reasoning, understanding geometric shapes, how shapes can be composed and decomposed to other shapes, tiling, and geometric relationships.

Some Area Relationships