Polynominoes
Tetrominoes are planar figures made of four squares. The seven different possibilities are shown here. You may recognize them from computer games such as Tetris.

As in Tetris, tetrominoes can be used to tile the plane, either periodically or not. Tessellations can be formed from tetrominoes.

Here is a hands-on activity that you may try:

Print out a sheet of tetrominoes to cut up and use for this activity. Try to tile the following shapes with tetrominoes. And don't just use the 4x1 tetromino, or the square; otherwise, the tilings will be trivial.

Can you find a tesselation that uses all of the seven tetrominoes?

 

• For some mathematics associated with tetrominoes, see "Polyomino Enumerations."
• For tiling problems using polyominoes, see "Conceptual Problems"
• For a lesson plan teaching tetrominoes as they relate to tessellations, see "Tetrominoes."
• For an excellent lesson plan on polyominoes and polyiamonds, including exploration and problems, see "Polyominoes and Polyiamonds"