a scarecrow...

"a scarecrow" Click directly on the image to enlarge it.

 Questions/Activities for this Autumn figurative design:

1. Count the number of blue rhombuses used in the figure above?
2. What shapes are used to symbolize the scarecrow's feet?
3. Count the number of equilateral triangles used to shape the scarecrow?
4. How many rhombuses are used to shape the scarecrow's straw hair?
5. Copy the scarecrow with your own set of tiles, but, give your scarecrow a different shaped hat.
   

a court jester...

"a court jester" Click directly on the image to enlarge it.

 Questions/Activities for this playful figurative design:

1. How many triangles are used to create this jester's clothing?
2. Count the number of rhombuses used to make the jester above.
3. The court jester's head is made with what shape?
4. How many smaller triangles are put side by side in order to assemble the jester's hat?
   
5. Now make a similar jester using your own Pattern Blocks. Give your jester different shapes for his feet and hands.
   

a hot air balloon...

"a hot air balloon" Click directly on the image to enlarge it.

Questions/Activities for this figurative balloon design:

1. How many rhombus tiles are used to make this hot are balloon?
2. Count the number of triangles used to shape this hot air balloon.
3. How many rhombus tiles are used to represent the star inside the balloon design only?
4. What type of shape is used to represent the basket beneath the balloon?
   
5. Now copy on your table, using the pattern blocks the exact same hot air balloon shown above.
   

a red bird pull toy...

"a red bird, pull toy" Click directly on the image to enlarge it.

Questions/Activities for this figurative bird design:

1. Count the number of trapezoids used to represent the body of the bird.
2. The hexagons in this picture have six equal sides, what colors are the hexagons and where are they located?
3. How many rhombuses have been used to symbolize the string for this pull toy?
4. Now manipulate your own version of this pull toy on the table provided to you with the same number and colors of pattern blocks.
5. Can you create your own pull toy with unique combinations of shapes? If so, give it a try!
   

A cluster of grapes...

"a cluster of green grapes" Click directly on the image to enlarge it.

Questions/Activities for this figurative fruity design:

1. Count the number of triangles used to represent grapes in the design above.
2. How many rhombus tiles are used to manipulate a stem for this cluster of grapes?
3. If you add both the triangles and rhombus tiles together, how many pattern blocks will you use to make this small puzzle all together? 
4. Can you find a six pointed star inside this cluster of grapes?
5. How many overlapping hexagon shapes can you find?
6. Now manipulate your own version of this cluster of grapes on the table provided to you with the same number and colors of pattern blocks.

Working With Pattern Blocks

Above are traditional wooden versions of Pattern Blocks. There are educational, toy companies that now manufacture
Pattern Blocks in plastic. If you can not afford either of these, you may cut out your own templates from paper.

        Pattern Blocks are one of the mathematical manipulatives developed in the 1960s by an Education Development Center as part of their Elementary Science Study project. They allow children to see how shapes can be decomposed into other shapes, and introduce children to ideas of tilings.

The Pattern Blocks includes multiple copies of six shapes in the following colors:

• Equilateral triangles are green. In geometry, an equilateral triangle is a triangle in which all three sides are equal. In the familiar Euclidean geometry, equilateral triangles are also equiangular; that is, all three internal angles are also congruent to each other and are each 60°. They are regular polygons, and can therefore also be referred to as regular triangles.
• Rhombus tiles that can be matched with two of the green triangles are blue. In Euclidean geometry, a rhombus(◊) (plural rhombi or rhombuses) is a simple (non-self-intersecting) quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same length. Another name is equilateral quadrilateral, since equilateral means that all of its sides are equal in length. The rhombus is often called a diamond, after the diamonds suit in playing cards which resembles the projection of an octahedral diamond, or a lozenge, though the former sometimes refers specifically to a rhombus with a 60° angle (see Polyiamond), and the latter sometimes refers specifically to a rhombus with a 45° angle. Every rhombus is a parallelogram and a kite. A rhombus with right angles is a square.
• Trapezoid that can be matched with three of the green triangles are red. In Euclidean geometry, a convex quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is referred to as a trapezoid (/ˈtræpəzɔɪd/) in American and Canadian English but as a trapezium (/trəˈpiːziəm/) in English outside North America. The parallel sides are called the bases of the trapezoid and the other two sides are called the legs or the lateral sides (if they are not parallel; otherwise there are two pairs of bases).
• Hexagon that can be matched with six of the green triangles are yellow. In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek ἕξ hex, "six" and γωνία, gonía, "corner, angle") is a six sided polygon or 6-gon. The total of the internal angles of any hexagon is 720°
• Squares with the same side-length as the green triangle are orange. In geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, or (100-gradian angles or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle in which two adjacent sides have equal length.
• Narrow rhombus with a 30° angle and the same side-length as the green triangle are white or beige.

       My patterns come with both questions and activities so that classroom teachers or homeschooling parents may use either a lap top or a desk-top computer center for creating interactive learning experiences for students reading this blog in specific:

1. Set up a learning center using a computer, laptop or tablet with access to https://thriftyscissors.blogspot.com pages only. The content must not be transferred to an alternative web location.
2. Provide a couple of sets of Pattern Blocks for each work space and paper with writing tools as well. 
3. Pick and choose the questions or actions that you want your students to answer or manipulate according to their age/abilities.
4. To enlarge the images, simple click on the image and you will be able to see a larger version on a dark background.

       If your students can not yet read, simply have them configure the same design in front of themselves with Pattern Blocks on a table or desk. Students can do this activity by themselves or in a group at a large table. This activity helps develop Pre-Math Skills: problem solving, patterning, estimation, sense of space, representation (symbolism) and number sense.

• Back to the Crafty Math Index Page

Manipulate More Shapes Using Pattern Block Games:

• Manipulate pattern blocks in order to form larger, simple shapes. (level one) and check your answers here.
• Manipulate pattern blocks to make geometric puzzles. (level two) and check your answers here.
  

Repeat Patterns Using Pattern Blocks:

• Repeating Patterns: Set One
• Repeating Patterns: Set Two
• Repeating Patterns: Set Three
  

Try My Figurative Designs For Pattern Blocks: Plus questions and activities...

1. two kissing fish
2. flower garden
3. a super hero shield
4. a scarecrow
5. the court jester 
6. a simple Christmas tree
7. a Christmas tree with a star
8. a red bird pull toy
9. hot air balloon
10. a red stocking with a green patch
11. a Christmas wreath
12. St. Nickolas
13. baby Jesus in a manger
14. poinsettia in a planter
15. a praying angel
16. a soccer ball
17. a cluster of grapes
18. a water lily

       The photographs located here are the copyrighted property of kathy grimm. Do not upload them onto your personal blogs or webpages for this reason. Give a link to the collection only, if you are referencing the collection.
       Also, do not alter the photographs in any way. Altering photos from this web journal will get you into a heap of trouble with the law. These photos are not included here for the purpose of creating a new collection or a duplicate one on an alternative web site. Copyrighted works must be altered in such a way as to render them "unrecognizable content" in order for the material to be reproduced without censure. In other words, you must make your own unique content from the very beginning, in order to keep copyright law.
       Educators, parents, and social workers from any country may use the photographs for hard copy within the context of a classroom environment only. The photographs should never be reproduced for sale. I have not authorized any person to charge money for profits from these photographs. They are intended for children to learn from freely but not for republishing on third party websites or printing out to sell for monetary gain!
 

More Pattern Block Templates, Mats, and Designs:

• Jessica's Patterns - printable designs
• Colorful Snowflake Designs
• Playing and Learning with Pattern Blocks

Research more about the history of Pattern Blocks:

• Three Labs by Henri Picciotto
  About the Importance of Math Manipulatives 

Where to purchase Pattern Blocks:

• Amazon sells sets (250) of wooden Pattern Blocks
• Lakeshore learning sells plastic Pattern Blocks
• Melissa & Doug have a cute set of pattern blocks that come inside a wooden puzzle set

A Memorial Day Prayer

       Almighty God, Maker of the heavens and the earth, King of kings, Lord of lords. Creator of all men, and Father of all spirits:
       We worship Thee this day as the source of all our benefits and blessings. We thank Thee for our conscious lives, for our republic, for our homes, which are the foundations of the republic; for our churches and our schools, and for all the moral forces which have shaped the nation of which we are a part.
       We thank Thee for the literature, the just laws, the sciences, the liberal benefactions, the mutual human trust, and the generous impulses which procure and preserve amity and peace among civilized  peoples.
       We thank Thee for the manliness, courage, devotion, and conscientious convictions which made possible our brave men and heroic women in the years when armies took the field against us, and dared to assail that for which our forefathers suffered and died.
       We thank Thee for our noble mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters, and for their undying patriotism and love manifested when they sadly but gladly permitted their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons to leave their dear ones to the care of God and risk their all upon the field of battle.
       While we are assembled here today, may God make vivid, emphasize, and impress upon this great congregation a sense of the priceless value of all that for which women have suffered at home, and of that for which men were willing to yield all save their sacred honor.
       Pardon all our sins; remit the guilt of that in our national laws or habits or indulgences for which we may have become responsible through our ignorance or by our indifference to the bounden duties
of citzinship.
       Revive within us a just appreciation of all that which by Thy blessing has preserved the nation until this day. Re-awaken us to the conditions upon which God will alone continue our national life.  We pray Thee to increase the number of our honest. God-fearing office-bearers, and to graciously rebuke and remove from power all those who have abused their sacred trusts.
       Grant Thy special blessings upon the family whose heroic husband and father is named by every voice in the nation today. May our grateful memories rival even this bronze in commemorating heroic
and patriotic deeds. We pray Thee to stimulate our gratitude toward all those who fought for the republic, and to quicken the spirit of genuine patriotism in every American heart.
       Impress each one of us with the sense of personal responsibility for our homes, for our nation, and for the continued existence of Christian civilization upon the earth.
       Help us to serve Thee by serving our fellowmen, and in the end bring us to the better kingdom above through Him who hath loved us and gave Himself for us. Amen. Delivered at the unveiling of
the Logan Statue, by Rev. Arthur Edwards.

Commemoration Ode Of 1865

Commemoration Ode Of 1865 

by James Russell Lowell.

Be proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her!
She that lifts up the manhood of the poor,
She of the open soul and open door.
With room about her hearth for all mankind!

What were our lives without thee?
What all our lives to save thee?
We reck not what we gave thee;
We will not dare to doubt thee.
But ask whatever else, and we will dare! 

Anniversary Poem

Anniversary Poem
John Greenleaf Whittier

I knew that truth would crush the lie,
Somehow, sometime the end would be;
Yet scarcely dared I hope to see
The triumph with my mortal eye.

"But now I see it! In the sun
A free flag floats from yonder dome.
And at the nation's hearth and home
The justice long delayed is done.

"Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer.
The message of deliverance comes.
But heralded by roll of drums
On waves of battle-troubled air!

"Not as we hoped - but what are we?

Above our broken dreams and plans

God lays, with wiser hand than man's

The corner-stones of liberty."

From "The Cotter's Saturday Night."

From "the Cotter's Saturday Night."

by Robert Burns

O, Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
And, O, may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury's contagion, weak and vile;
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while.
And stand ' a wall of fire around their much-lov'd isle.

O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide
That stream'd thro' Wallace's undaunted heart;
Who dar'd to, nobly, stem tyrannic pride.
Or nobly die, the second glorious part,
(The patriot's God, peculiarly thou art.
His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)
O never, never, Scotia's realm desert.
But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard,

In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

From Locksley Hall

From Locksley Hall

by Alfred Tennyson

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see.
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies or magic sails.
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nation's airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm.
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunderstorm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

Recessional

Recessional

by Rudyard Kipling

God of our fathers, known of old -
Lord of our far-flung battle-line -
Beneath Whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine -
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies -
The captains and the kings depart -
Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet.
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away -
On dune and headland sinks the fire -
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet.
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe -
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the Law -
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet.
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard -
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard -
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord! Amen.