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