Cutting or Folding a Shape Apart to Find Smaller Shapes Inside

This is not just for paper. Tailors and carpenters cut large pieces into smaller ones every day, planning the cuts before the blade moves. This is worth learning because seeing shapes inside shapes prepares you for fractions and area. Watch for it today, and when you spot it, tell someone what you noticed and how you knew. Ask yourself where else the same idea might be hiding, then go and look.

Today you get to learn something useful. Shapes also come apart. Fold a square along a diagonal and you get two triangles. Cut a rectangle down the middle and you get two smaller rectangles. Fold a hexagon and see what appears.

Taking shapes apart is just combining run backward, and it shows you what a shape is made of. Nothing is lost in the cutting. The pieces still add up to the whole you started with.

Try folding before cutting whenever you can. A fold can be undone if you were wrong, but a cut cannot. That is good advice for paper and for most other decisions too. Go slowly the first time and faster the fifth time.