Story: Students are exploring Pentominos as a way to solve s secret code! Their read aloud character Daniel has discovered 5 magical square stones. He knows they can be configured to resemble 12 different letters of the alphabet. If students can find all 12 configurations, they can use them to decode the missing letters in the secret message that is attached to today’s Math Vitamin sheet. When working with the magical square stones, each one needs to be touching a full side of another square stone and each unique shape they create must have an area of 5. Students are asked to build with color tiles and use one-inch grid paper to document and label each shape they create. They are advised to be carful about being deceived by shapes that are the same when flipped a different direction…part of the secret code process! All Math Vitamins require students to build, draw and record their work as well as share their thoughts with peers and teachers. The strong UCDS math community within each classroom is developed through the process of peer and teacher conversations that focus on exciting mathematical tasks and engaging ideas about the various approaches to solve them.

Suggested manipulatives: Color Tiles are ideal for this activity as they are square and flat. You could use cubes, but they add a bit too much dimensionality. Use one-inch grid paper for students to document their work. Cutting the created shapes out of paper really allows students to explore the rotations and flips to avoid duplications. Premade pentomino sets are also good to have on hand, but not needed.

Prep time: Adapting the vitamin wording to fit your specific story, putting manipulatives out in the room, creating the grid papers and copying the vitamin documentation forms will take about 15-20 minutes. Set up is always more fun and shorter on time if you do this activity with a colleague.

Classroom time: Asking children to “do their best work” for each Math Vitamin assumes that some children will need a longer time than others. Ideally you want to offer a block of time for Math Vitamin projects and have another task available (writing, free exploration etc.) for those students who finish work prior to their peers. For this project allow 45-60 minutes for students to work through all the steps.

How to individualize/stretch: Begin by using Color Tiles to create shapes with a specific area. The only requirement is that one full side of each tile must touch another full side of a tile. Then ask students to create shapes with an area of 5…can they find 12 different shapes with that area? It’s fun to link these shapes to alphabet letters as well. Move on to using the shapes to create rectangles, for example, how many ways can you make a 3x5 rectangle with your pieces? Draw and record. The premade pentomino sets have some great puzzle activities too. Strong visual spatial skills.