My Education Junction

After seeing The Greedy Triangle listed on a number of math concept reading lists, I decided to go to the library and check out a copy. Written by Marilyn Burns, The Greedy Triangle introduces children to polygons by recognizing shapes found in their environment. For example, a triangle is so much more than a three-sided shape. It is a piece of pie, a half of a sandwich and the roof of a house. The triangle is greedy because he is never satisfied with his shape and continually seeks the help of a “shapeshifter” in order to get more sides and more angles. It is through his quest to find the perfect shape that children are introduced to quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons, heptagons and more.

After reading the book I gave my son a bag of Twizzlers. Here are some pictures of the polygons he created.

Polygons -A closed plane figure made up of several line segments that are joined together. The sides do not cross each other. Exactly two sides meet at every vertex. To see more examples of polygons visit Math is Fun.

Filed under: Math on April 19th, 2007