Funny geometry!

Hello everyone! In this post I bring you a series of activities that are very dynamic and funny to work with primary school students.

With them we can work with different concepts of geometry. In addition, these activities can be adapted depending on the course you are working on. The same exercise can increase the difficulty if we include the calculation of areas for the third cycle, however, the same activity can be used to introduce the geometric figures in the first cycle of primary school. It is a question of creativity!

The first activity I want to share is called “Geoboard”. This is a manipulative activity in which students can create different types of regular and irregular polygons, calculate the area of a figure among other things as I commented previously in another post.  

The next game to work geometry is most commonly known as "Bingo". This game consist on guess several polygons according to some descriptions that the teacher gives to the students. According to these description the student of group of students have to be able discover what is the figure that the teacher is talking about. It can be used rather than polygons, with formulas of the areas which are more difficult to learn. 

Lastly, I want to focus on an interesting game that surely our students will pass a great time! This is called “I am Poly Gon”. This is a figure of different polygons in which students have to recognise the present figures or they also can calculate the perimeter and the area as well.

Geometry in nature

As I said in previous occassions we can find geometry in many aspects of our real life even we do not take care about it.

The circular and spherical shapes abound in nature, we can see flowers, fruits or plants among other things. Find in nature living objects or organisms which take perfectly square or triangular shapes it is not easy, but it is true that the sheer mass of forms could remind us to geometric figures.

As we can see in the figure, circular and spherical shapes are common in nature. Nevertheless we can find different geometric figures as we can see in these pictures; 

Many forms of nature cannot be associated or described with regular forms such as polygons. However, there is a relatively new geometry that can describe them, the fractal geometry. The number of fractals in nature is truly astonishing. Do you believe that?

Optical illusions!

Hello again! Today, in this post I am share with you an interesting topic that we can use with students of primery in order to teach Geometry in a motivating way. I am talking about, optical illusions. 

When your eyes see a picture they send an image to your brain, which your brain then has to make sense of. But sometimes your brain gets it wrong. The result is an optical illusion.

Depending on light, viewing angle, or the way the picture is drawn, we may see things that aren't there.

It is really funny for children to work with optical illusions due to they will think they are in movement, as we think as well. In that way we can also introduce not only Geometry but also polygons, figures and symmetry as well with optical illusion images.

I want to share with you some examples;

Teachers can use optical illusions in order to make something different in class. In addition, I am sure that children enjoy any activity using it such as the process as the result. 

Furthermore, it is a suitable way to develop the imagination of the learners throughout the exprimentation. In that sense they can create different draws using optical illusions and then they can share them with the class. It is a funny and a transversal way to enjoy the geometry!

In this video you can find an example of a optical illusion drawing. I hope you have enjoyed this post, see you!

Geometry in movies

In this new post I want to link the geometry to other means inside the classroom as it is the case of the movies. There is multitude of movies that deal with geometry and it would be very interesting for the students and to create a different activity in class. Moreover it is something out of the ordinary.

Between them I would like speaking of:

•  Flatland: the story begins in a two-dimensional reality in which triangles, circles and squares live. Thanks to the geometry and an unexpected visit, some Flatland's inhabitants will discover that the third dimension exists. Although it is a question of a movie adapted for all the ages, due to the mathematical concepts also it can be used for students older than 12 years.

• Donald in Mathmagic Land: this entertaining character of Disney,  Donald duck, discovers a place full of numbers and calculations. This movie is a question of the Country of the Mathematics, where he will learn some of the basic concepts related to Mathematics and Geometry. It is wonderful tool to introduce children increasingly in the subject of the numbers!

Manipulative material in class

Following with the last post, in this one I bring to you some manipulative materials that we can use with our students of primary at the same time that they learn geometry.

The "poliminós" are a group of squares joined by the sides, in that way for every two they have at least a common side. This manipulative material is very useful to practise with the space and different forms and geometric figures. The most well-known are the pentaminós.

This material offers the possibility of constructing it in class involving the students in the creation of the material. We construct them on pasteboard or cardboard for used it in 3D, to dump them or even to turn them.

The different figures that we can create for this material are: 

• Uniminós: formed by only one square. 
• Dominós: formed by two squares. 
• Triminós: formed by three squares. 
• Tetraminós: formed by four squares. 
• Pentaminós: formed by five squares. 
• Hexaminós: formed by six squares.

A didactic proposal that we can use to use this manipulative material would be the following one:  http://profecelia.com/content/poliminos-para-dos-jugadores

Next, I want to speak about another material resource to work geometry at class. Commonly, this one is more well-known and it is called “Geoplano“. In addition, this resource is quite interesting due to it offers us the possibility of introducing the geometrical concepts in a manipulative way.

There are different types of geoplanos, every classroom adapts it to their own needs, but in general we can use this material for multitude of functions as it can be to construct geometric forms, to discover the properties of the polygons or even to solve mathematical problems, to learn on areas and perimeters as well. Furthermore, the learners are experimenting with real and manipulative materials that is always more motivating for them.

Lastly, I am going to speak about "Tangram" which is a jigsaw puzzle that consists of 7 pieces. It is a game that needs of ingenuity, imagination. With regad to mathematics also it offers a large number of possibilities.

In geometry it serves to us to work with flat geometric figures, for angles and the classification of the same ones. Also, we can work the area and the perimeters of the figures. For all this I believe that it is a manipulative material quite completed. 

Here you can find a video that includes different figures to work with the pupils: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCjMpEnhYg0