This is a fun non curricular thinking task that goes beyond just asking students to convert rational numbers to other forms and put them in order. It provides students with an opportunity to think more deeply about the relative sizes of rational and irrational numbers and strategically choose which shapes to place where.

There are many valid approaches and answers to this task so it is a great way to start the year and build a thinking classroom.

This includes both a version made for 5th, 6th, or 7th grade with mixed numbers and decimal side lengths as well as a version for 8th/9th grade which includes square roots as well.

My Other Thinking Classroom Tasks

Non-curricular BTC 4 Points Task

Writing Equations from Tables Thin Slicing Task

Rectangle Area and Perimeter Thinking Problems