Tangrams

(image made available from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tangram_set_00.jpg under a Creative Commons Licence)
The first known tangram was invented in 1813 in China. At the time it was considered a game for woman and children. No one actually knows what the word tangram means. A likely story involves the Tanka people. Tanka people are Chinese river men who were great traders. They sailed all round the world and played with tangrams with when returning to their Tanka girlfriends! It first appeared in a book published in Japan in 1742.  Another story is that a man was carrying a square tile and he fell and the tile smashed into seven pieces and created the first tangram!
A tangram always has seven peices. There is a special tangram called "Sei Shonagon" which also has seven pieces but is much more complex.
We watched an animation called "Laughing Moon". It was created by a Japanese animator called Kiyoshi Nishimoto.  Kiyoshi Nishimoto was born in Shimonoseki City. He had graduated from the the Commercial Design Department in the Musashino Art University in Tokyo.  Laughing Moon is simple, clever and very funny.  It inspired us to make our own tangram animations.

We made our own tangrams out of gummy paper and cut out different shapes including, five triangles, one square and a parallelogram.  We then planned and filmed in  groups of threes and fours a minute long tangram animation.Then we added them all together to make one long film.  Lastly, we added our sound effects and some music to help make the tangram shapes come alive!!