Geometry (January & February 2015)
Our geometry has been a bigger winner with the students. Not only are they very interested in our activities, but they have been extremely successful as well.
We started by looking at 2D shapes and their characteristics (sides, vertices and angles). We compared and sorted shapes based on these characteristics. We combiled an extensive glossary and watched the Shape Name Game a number of times. We are now familiar with circles, squares, rectangles, rhombuses, trapezoids, parallelograms, pentagons, heptagons, hexagons and octagons.
We moved on to 3D figures and increased our glossary to include cubes, pyramids and prisms. We, once again, looked at the characteristics including faces, edges and vertices. We built these figures from polydrons and paper nets.
We faced an incredible challenge using Tangrams. Tangrams are a collection of 7 geometric shapes used to make pictures. They originated in China and were brought to North America and Europe in the early 1800s. Tangram puzzles and accompanying books of pictures became hugely popular. As one of our morning challenges we tried to make a number of animal shapes. It was a lot tougher than it first appeared.
We created 3D figures, mainly cubes and rectangular prisms, using the increasingly popular art of Paper Craft. Students chose a popular character, I printed out the patterns at home on card stock and we got building. This was a really wonderful project that the students loved and I highly recommend it. You can find the patters just by searching the internet.
