Keri Houchin

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Home » Activities » Printable Tangrams and Challenge Cards

Printable Tangrams and Challenge Cards

6 July, 2016 by Keri 19 Comments

Tangrams are a fun puzzle activity that’s perfect for STEAM classrooms, road trip busy bags, and educational playtime anywhere. Use the shapes to create a dog, a turtle, and other creations on the challenge cards. This set includes 4 printable tangrams and 8 challenge cards.

A piece of paper with 4 tangrams and a piece of paper with shapes to build

Disclosure: This blog post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase from one of these links, I make a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read more.

Tangrams are a simple 7-piece puzzle that fits together as a square. The individual pieces can be put together in an infinite number of combinations to make other shapes. They make a good activity for kids who need to be busy or just enjoy a good brain challenge. Tangrams are fun because while there are plenty of difficult puzzles for older kids to make with these, but even preschoolers will enjoy the simplest ones.

My son has a set of metal tangrams. I’ve also seen them made from plastic or wood.

Because they are such a fun activity for kids of all ages, I decided to make a printable tangrams set and a few challenge cards.

dog made from tangrams beside challenge card with a picture of a dog on it
boat made from tangrams beside challenge card with a picture of a boat on it

Tangrams and challenge cards

This printable is three 8.5×11-inch pages. The first page is the tangrams. I fit four sets on a single page. Although the original game uses just one set, you can combine sets and get creative when you have more shapes to use.

The next two pages are challenge cards. There are four pictures on each page, and each one requires only a single set of tangrams. They’re simple enough for young kids to be able to do them, but my 9-year-old also likes to play with them.

If you’re looking for something a little more challenging, be sure to check out my tangrams mandala puzzles too. They include 4 different symmetrical spiraled patterns to build.

challenge cards with a house, dog, and rocket beside a set of pieces
rocket and fish challenge cards surrounded by shape pieces

Printable tangrams

Click here to download the printable.

You may need to allow popups or give permission to download. See Printables Troubleshooting and FAQ for help. If you want to save this printable for later, please pin an image from this blog post instead of saving the direct link to the PDF.

I recommend printing these on cardstock. You could also print them on heavier cover stock paper or something else more durable, but I haven’t tried it. If you’re giving them to a young child, it might be worthwhile to laminate every piece to make them more durable.

On the tangrams page, cut out each of the four squares and then cut each one into the smaller shapes. Cut the challenge cards into four along the dotted lines.

an uncut set of pieces next to one that is already cut out

If you found this post helpful, you might also like:

  • Tangrams Mandala Puzzles
  • LEGO Challenge Card Game
  • Tetris Printable Game for Kids
Printable tangrams + challenge cards make a fun kids activity or DiY gift idea.

Filed Under: Activities Tagged With: printables

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Comments

  1. Crochet Hooks says

    21 July, 2016 at 6:59 pm

    this is pretty cool! I love the different images and the fact all you need is paper and you have quiet time fun 🙂

    Reply
  2. Sew Crafty Crochet says

    21 July, 2016 at 8:26 pm

    Tangrams are so much fun! Great gift idea!

    Reply
  3. Mary-The Boondocks Blog says

    22 July, 2016 at 3:51 am

    A super gift idea. Sometimes the fun this are also very simple.

    Reply
    • Keri says

      22 July, 2016 at 10:58 am

      Thanks, Mary! Sometimes I think kids spend so much time with electronics that everything else becomes a novelty.

      Reply
  4. David Benson says

    15 May, 2017 at 10:18 am

    We plan to print them out, and then laminate.
    And use them in the STEM classes at the pre-school.

    Reply
    • Keri says

      17 May, 2017 at 9:52 am

      That sounds great! I hope the kids enjoy the tangrams.

      Reply
  5. pam says

    24 July, 2017 at 4:59 pm

    thank you for the tangrams – we used to do them in homeschool with my son – now I can use these with his son – thank you!

    Reply
    • Keri says

      25 July, 2017 at 8:01 am

      You’re welcome! I’ve heard a lot of homeschoolers are using them.

      Reply
  6. Sarah says

    17 December, 2017 at 8:44 am

    Thank you so much! I made tangrams for my students and will include your challenge cards. I love these things. So glad others find them gift-worthy.

    Reply
  7. June “Shelly” Anguiano says

    1 February, 2018 at 8:56 am

    These are great! I printed the various shape challenge card combinations in B&W to make it an extra level of challenge and in color for the kids to check their accuracy. SO great! Thank you for this.

    Reply
    • Keri says

      1 February, 2018 at 9:33 am

      That’s a great idea! I think I’m going to reprint mine in black and white to up the challenge for my kids now that they’ve done them in color so often.

      Reply
  8. Faith says

    10 March, 2018 at 7:27 am

    Thanks for the free printable, I do OT with the elderly & this will be perfect for them.

    Reply
    • Keri says

      10 March, 2018 at 9:53 am

      That’s wonderful!

      Reply
  9. Juan Garcia says

    10 November, 2018 at 11:46 pm

    I am a Tangram Master I think that is a great idea what your doing

    Reply
    • Keri says

      12 November, 2018 at 7:39 am

      Thanks, Juan! I think tangrams are a great challenge for every age! You might want to check out my tangrams mandalas: http://onemamasdailydrama.com/printable-tangrams-mandala-puzzle-pages

      Reply

Trackbacks

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    […] Printable Tangrams + Challenge Cards […]

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    3 July, 2017 at 4:34 pm

    […] think I have sets of these in my classroom or at least in my building.  However, this website had printable cards and printable tangrams.  Click here for more cards that have the alphabet, and […]

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