I have attached a PPT that I made for a tangram exercise that was inspired by the book, ESL Classroom Activities for Teens and Adults.

(1) Break the students up into groups, and have them each represent a color (e.g. Blue Team, Red Team, Green Team).

(2) Give each team a bag of mix-colored tangrams--7 shapes should be a sufficient number.

(3) Then, give each group a picture of a design that they need to make. Emphasize that the students should not show their designs to any of the other teams.

(4) Have each team take turns asking other teams for particular shapes in their team's color (e.g. Blue Team asks for Blue shapes and red team asks for red shapes).

(5) Emphasize to the students that they need to use the key phrases that are in the powerpoint: "Do you have __________" "Can we have __________," and "Put the _______ on top/to the left/to the right."

Ideally, your students will have reviewed prepositions before playing this game. If not, I would strongly recommend pre-teaching select vocabulary, perhaps have the students play a few games on the Games to Learn English website.

Files that are included in this thread:

• The PPT File
• Designs that the students make
• Tangram printable (Make sure to print this out in different-colored paper!)

Preparation:

• You will need to cut the tangram printables and place each shape in separate bags for each team
• You will need to print out the designs that the students will make

***BONUS: Print out the key phrases slide at the end of the PPT and allow each student to have their own individual copy so that they can use the key phrases without having to continuously look up at the PPT slides!

Best of luck!

Nice resources!

Thought I would just add my tangram PPT, which includes an object/animal/person picture, followed by a silhouette of the tangram, followed by the solution to that tangram. Good for tangram races.

Toddisqui and Jonni you are both AWESOME !!!

I am going to use both these ppts with my middle school students on Monday!!! 

This is such a great idea to engage kinaesthetic learners.

( To simplify things I will use Todds ppt presentation as an introduction and then Jonni's as a race to replicate ( teams or individuals depending on how the classrooms are set up ).

Cheers.