Square of Pythagoras - Some Extentions

Yet again we used the square of Pythagoras, although this time we worked together at arranging it, Ella dividing up the pieces between us, although she always kept the squares.  "After all, I'm the student!" she explained.

Ella and I have made the square of Pythagoras.  Then I directed her to build the tower with the pink cubes.

Without any prompting on my part she took the smallest square and put it on the smallest cube of her tower and said, "Look Mummy!  They go together!"

We then "related" the pink cubes with the square of Pythagoras.  I asked how she knew where each would go and she explained that each side of a cube was a square and that therefore the pink cubes would go on the actual squares in the square of Pythagoras.

Ella then proceeded to relate the two materials in the same way as she had done with the red square and the smallest pink cube.

Then she did it horizontally.

After we had put away the pink tower and reorganized our square of Pythagoras I got out the bead square for her to relate them together.  She told me that it was pretty easy since they all matched in colour.

Here she is almost done.  I then extended the lesson a little by giving her an early glimpse into multiplication; though we are not yet "naming" it as such as I would like her to absorb the ideas sensorially first.  I would touch each bead square, while it was superimposed on the square of Pythagoras and say, "One one is one.  Two twos are four.  Three threes are nine," and so on.  After each statement I would pause for her to touch the square and repeat what I just said.  I expect this activity will continue in a variety of ways until we are actually doing "real" multiplication.

Our "fancy" storage container for the square of Pythagoras - a plain wood tray from the dollar store.