Skip to Main Content

Twisting Triangles

Children will have fun learning about triangles while creating a triangle mobile.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Cardboard
  • Heavy Paper
  • Hole Punch
  • Yarn

Steps

  • Step 1

    Have children identify various geometric shapes, such as triangles, squares, circles, rectangles, etc. Explain that there are different kinds of triangles. Show them images of different types of triangles and ask if they can find the ones that have  three equal sides (equilateral),  two equal sides and one that's different (isosceles) and three different sides (scalene).

  • Step 2

    Have children form small groups to create a triangle mobile. They can each cut some triangles out of heavy paper or poster board and decorate them however they'd like. Ask one member of the group to make a larger triangle out of cardboard from which the others will hang. 

  • Step 3

    When they're done, help them punch several holes in the large cardboard triangle and one hole in each of the triangles that will dangle from it.

  • Step 4

    Suspend the mobiles in the classroom and enjoy geometry in action!

Standards

MATH: Analyze, compare, create, and compose math ideas using written, oral, and drawn lines, shapes, forms, and patterns.  

MATH: Describe, compare, quantify, and classify objects by attributes. Sort objects into categories.

Adaptations

Alexander Calder was an artist who introduced the element of movement into sculptures. He called his movable sculptures mobiles and his fixed versions stabiles. Show children images of some of his works, such as "Red and Yellow Vane" (1934), "Steel Fish" (1934), "Polygons on Triangles" (1963), or any others. Have children identify the shapes they see in each.

Have students go on a triangle scavenger hunt, either in school or in the community. Ask them to sketch the triangular items they see. Examples might include a sandwich cut on the diagonal, an A-frame roof on a house, a ladder leaning against a wall, the side of a swing set on the playground, etc.