Geometry for Third Grade
Posted by: ConnieWI #131485
Try to find someone who can loan you Math By All Means-Grade 3 (Marilyn Burns). It is wonderful!!
Read books about quilting, research quilt squares, and then design a single square or class quilt. Maybe you could use them in your guided reading groups, literature circles, or for read alouds. I use these books. They include: Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert, The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau and the sequel The Quiltmaker’s Journey, The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns, The Quilting Bee by Gail Gibbons, The Quilt Story by Tony Johnson, The Patchwork Quilt by Valerie Flournoy, The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco, Cloak for a Dreamer by Aileen Friedman, and Sam Johnson and the Blue Ribbon Quilt by Lisa Campbell Ernst. (If you check Amazon.com, you will find many mor...
Something that has really worked for my class is practicing line, line segments, and rays using arm motions. For endpoints make fists and point for arrows, we also used our arms to make right angles. It was fun cause I turned it into a simeon says type of game. They loved it and it really helped a lot of them grasp the concepts.
You might try these places::) http://classroomclipart.com/cgi-bin/kids/imageFolio.cgi?direct=Clipart/Mathematics http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/category/math2.html http://www.clipartguide.com/_search_terms/math.html http://www.clipart4kids.com/clipart/Math_Clipart/ http://www.teacherfiles.com/clip_math.htm
I also do an active demonstration. I give them string to represent the line. Partners hold the line in between them. If they make a ray, they face outward and point. I incorporate directions with it...asking them to face north, west, south, east, etc.
I have them go on an angle hunt through our room and the downstairs hallway. They have a partner and a clipboard with paper to record a picture of their item and then tell whether it's acute, obtuse, or right. They like getting out of their seats and it shows how Math is in our lives everywhere!
i dunno how fun, but this is what i always do:
introduce main vocab (point, line, ray, angle...) and have students write term, define, draw picture, and "name"...like a line would be named AB (with line over it)
i use the book by fulvio testa (?pretty sure that's it!) called *if you look around you* which compares different geo terms to actual items (line segment = dog's leash...)
then we look around the room to find various things (we have to use our imagination for line and plane and ray, since nothing goes on forever)
then i pass out magazines and have them cut out and glue a collage of examples of geo terms (corner on roof=angle, railroad ties=parallel...) i usually make it a game/contest to see who can get the most examples of all of the terms--the priz...
I used flat tootpicks last year and had them glue them on to construction paper. Then we drew on arrows or points, etc. and labeled them and wrote the defintion of each on. They loved it and it seemed to help them learn them.
When we do geometry vocab. for my word wall or thier own dictionearies, I have the kids write the word and make one of the letters match it's meaning. For example, for line I write the l with two arrows at the end to look like a line. For acute angle, I make the c an acute angle. For parrallel lines, the two l's are the lines. For obtuse, the b is an obtuse angle . It's hard to describe by typing, but I hope you get the idea. Once I do a couple examples for the kids, then they come up with ideas for all the rest of the words. It's a visual way for them to link the word to the definition.
Hi there...
I teach fifth grade and last year, I made a tree on one of my walls. When we did our geometry unit our tree turned into a geome-tree. My kids made pictures of the terms, labeled them and then wrote a short definition on construction paper. We then hung all of the construction paper 'ornaments' on the tree. When kids would work, I would allow them to work under the tree for quick reference of the terms. I think the uniqueness of the tree captured their brains, because this class really did learn the vocabulary.
I use the "I have ___, who has ___?" game repeatedly during our geometry unit and several times afterward. If you are unfamiliar with this, you need to make at least as many cards as there are students in your class. Each card has an answer and a question. For example, one may say "I have radius. Who has a triangle with three equal sides and three equal angles?" Whoever has the equilateral triangle card would speak next. "I have equilateral triangle. Who has an eight-sided polygon?"
I use this "game" for several topics. The one they really love is for state capitals. "I have Albany. Who has the capital of Florida?"
I have my second graders build a Shape Robot. They use attribute blocks to trace different shapes on white paper. They then color the shapes. Next they cut out all the shapes and glue them in a way to create a robot on a large piece of paper. Finally, they have to write a paragraph about their robot. We then display the Shape Robots in the hallway. Great fun and very creative!
Geometry Photography
Posted by: Lynne in VA #131497
If you have access to digital cameras, have your class hunt for plane shapes in the school, photograph them, and identify them. This can also work with line relationships...perpendicular lines in the corners and on cinder blocks and floor and ceiling tiles, parallel lines from the same places, and intersecting lines almost anywhere. Later you can add the three-D shapes to your display as well as angles found and identified.
I will just paste and copy this. This is an assignment I gave to my middle school students:
Geometry Map Project
Angles, Lines and Triangles
Your task is to design a map that includes several different kinds of lines, angles and triangles. Your map can be of a town, your neighborhood or a made up place. It must however include the following:
- Two sets of streets that are parallel
- Two sets of streets that are perpendicular
- One street that intersects another streets to form an obtuse angle
- One street intersects another to form an acute angle
- One street that is a line segment
- One street that is a line
- One street that is a ray
- An ice cream parlor in the shape of an equilateral triangle
- A Pool that is in the s...
National Virtual Manipulatives Library
Posted by: Shari #131499
If you haven't seen this site, it is well worth a visit! Grades K-12.
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html You may project the image from your computer, using a projector with a USB plug-in, onto a screen or wall. You can rotate, manipulate images. Let the kids take turns at the computer for interactive lessons.
Ideas and Geometry websites here
Posted by: Risa #131500
I agree that a great way to lead into your Geometry unit is to use The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns. I even went so far as to make each of the large yellow shapes with big eyes like the main character in the book. It helped my students to stay involved and they came in handy when we talked about the name of each shape, its vertices, and its sides.
We also use graph paper when we get into perimeter and area. Just a quick tip for these two terms: Each time we said the word 'perimeter' we drew the outline of a square (or rectangle) in the air. As we said each syllable "per-i-met-er" we 'drew' a side. This was to help students remember that perimeter refers to the outside edge of a shape. (I was thrilled when I noticed some students waiting in the lunch line 'teaching' other stu...
I use this pattern to make a turkey at Thanksgiving but you can make a christmas ball out of it or color a Santa face, arms, and legs to make a fat Santa. Each student needs twelve pentagon shapes. Color them, cut out, and glue together. Here is the link for the pattern and I will attach a picture of the turkey.
I have used gum drops and toothpicks. The gum drops would make the ornaments more colorful! For instructions, I told the kids how many toothpicks and gumdrops they would need for each shape. They had to figure out the rest.
Playdough
Posted by: vjc123 #131501
I taught a lesson on three-dimensional shapes in first grade and I used playdough. I had the children create three-dimensional shapes using the playdough and they loved it. I think your third graders will have a lot of fun with it. Good luck!
Shape Up by David Adler. Using cheese, pretzels, and bread, the students build polygons, angles, lines, etc. The kids always love it.
Also, if working with 3D shapes...after the kids have a handle on them, have them build huge shapes with masking tape and rolled up newspaper. These huge models are great for teaching faces, edges, etc.
My students each get a net of a shape (important to see it in that form too) and then they fold it and create the 3D shape. THen their table group creates a museum complete with a card for each shape that labels the number of corners, sides, and edges and the name of the shape.
-gh
Hexagon - has the letter "x" in it, just like the word "six". If they can remember the letter "x", they can remember a hexagon has six sides.
For quadrilaterals: We talked a lot about the prefix "qua-"
* 4 QUArters in a dollar
* 4 babies are QUAdruplets
* 4 QUArts in a gallon
* 1/4 is also called "one quarter"
* Cuatro/Cuarto (four/fourth in Spanish) sound like the word "quarter" (I have a lot of Hispanic students).
For specific quadrilaterals, like trapezoids, parallelograms, rhombuses, etc I don't have any special tricks. I'm curious to know if anyone else has any to share!
Hi, this post is from a week or so ago, but I thought I'd reply anyway...here's how I "chunk" my geometry unit: 1. Plane figures and solid figures--polygons, 3-d figures, sides, vertices, edges, faces, etc. 2. points, lines, segments, rays, angles / acute, obtuse, right, straight angles / parallel, perpendicular, intersecting lines. 3. triangles and quadrilaterals--more specific--isosceles, equilateral, scalene, acute, obtuse, right triangles / squares, rectangles, trapezoids, parallelograms, rhombi 4. Circles 5. transformations (slides, flips, turns) congruence, similarity, symmetry 6. Geometry and measurement--perimeter, area, and volume
Go's are Graphic Organizers. I use error analysis in every subject area to teach critical thinking skills. GO's help the students organize their reasoning skills when I use error analysis. I did find some materials in a book called "Organized Thinking" that has the children categorize geometric figures according to feature analysis. I'll try to post a couple of pictures of what I used. I'm still looking for line, line segment, ray, feature analysis resources though. These are the ones the children forget MOST often..........they get them confused. One of my students was asking for help on remembering the difference between slides, turns, and flips so we took some die cut shapes and placed them (she did......with little guidance) poster paper and named them "Piggy Slide" - "Gator Tur...
is a great kinesthetic activity to help teach them lines, line segments, rays, points, and types of angles. Have them sit on the floor in a circle, and throw a ball of yarn back and forth while they hold on to it. Then tape the yarn down by each child, and pass of points written on post-its. Have the children identify lines, line segments, points, rays (I made arrows to create these and put them where I wanted them), and various angles. They love it!
chinese skipping ropes and geoboard and block
Posted by: cindyteacher #131509
1) You can use the geoboard and have them make the polygons. They can sit with partners or in small groups and compare the many ways an octagon can look. Use this time to talk about regular octagons etc. and irregular octagons etc. The kids find it exciting when they end up making the same one and when they end up making different ones. Regular polygons are more difficult to make then they think. The record them on square dot paper.
2) Along the same lines, you can use chinese skipping ropes (basically really long elastic bands-used for jumping). YOu can usually buy them at the dollar store (usually in the seasonal section). Have the students work in groups and make the polygons (their legs act as the vertices). So they stand inside them and each person acts as a vertice).
thanks for all your ideas. i didn't have access to the book, but i made a chart for the students to fill out with the name of the shape, picture, # sides, # angles, # points, and # pairs of parallel sides. after making a list of all the shapes they've learned as a class, i had the students work in pairs and choose 5 shapes to make with the marshmallows and toothpicks and fill-out the chart for...it worked out great! ..and after filling out the chart the students noticed that #sides = #points = # angles
Here are some suggestions....
Posted by: jlc84 #131511
Here are some suggestions as to what I did for the geometry and measurement unit:
- When teaching about solid figures, I had the students walk around the room and find real-life examples of solid figures.
- When talking about lines, line segments, and rays, I had the students manipulate jump ropes, walking away from one another to represent lines and staying put for lines segments. It was very effective.
- When teaching about angles, I had the students manipulate pipe cleaners. Each student had two: one was yellow and the other was a different color. The yellow one was bent as a right angle and stayed that way, while the other color was bent to model acute and obtuse angles, then held over the right angle to see the differences. This was also very effective.
- When...
--When studying geometry, I use these books. They include: Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert, The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau and the sequel The Quiltmakers Journey, The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns, The Quilting Bee by Gail Gibbons, The Quilt Story by Tony Johnson, The Patchwork Quilt by Valerie Flournoy, The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco, Cloak for a Dreamer by Aileen Friedman, and Sam Johnson and the Blue Ribbon Quilt by Lisa Campbell Ernst. (If you check Amazon.com, you will find many more titles. Search Childrens Books, quilts.)
--Of course, now that my students have read all these books, they have to design a quilt square.
--Instead of using marshmallows and toothpicks, I use straws cut into four, six, and eight inches. Your will need abo...
art/math for vocabulary...and handmotions
Posted by: starry1 #128263
i always do a handson activity at the end, its math art....they divide a big sheet of construction paper into square sections and have them cut out of colored paper various things and show them and label them...such as one thing will be a circle with a radius and diameter(all done in colored paper) and the labeled...you can tell them what they have to have in each box.....heres some suggestions: right triangle, isosceles triangle, square, rectangle, an acute angle, and etc....its also a good idea to have a model of the activity before u have kids do it......i do it at the end of the unit every year. i also do hand/arm motions for everything(kinesthetic)...i make up hand motions for many things...example acute angle is an allgiator mouth chomping....intersecting lines are two arms in shape ...
We do pencil exercises. We dig out 2 pencils and 'exercise' them. I call out various terms (perpendicular, parallel, right angle, etc.) and they
form the term I call out. They love it. I also let them come up and be the leader.
We also go on scavenger hunts around the school. It is amazing how many terms they can find by looking at the ceiling, windows, doors, tables, etc.
3rd grade isn't near as in depth as 5th grade. Mine have always done really well w/the terms.
Just had to share this web-site with a song for geometry terms sung to do-re-mi from the Sound of Music... I can't wait for math tomorrow --- http://www.glc.k12.ga.us/BuilderV03/lptools/lpshared/lpdisplay.asp?Session_Stamp=&LPID=14019
I like to play simon says. I teach the kids to make each kind of angle with their arms. We also do parallel, perpendicular, and intersecting lines. Then we play simon says. The kids love it!
I have made really cool 3-D shapes using gum drops for the vertices and toothpicks for the edges.
I do the attached sheet with my kids. I have a basket of 3-D solids that I pass out to teams. They complete the sheet with their group. I teach them to draw the shapes, which they love.
thinking backwards!!!
Posted by: jameza40 #132548
I like to make overheads of the nets of solid figures and have the students sift through their bucket of solid wooden shapes and hold up the solid for the net I have placed on the overhead. They LOVE this challenge!! (I would attach a sample - but I do not know how to attach word documents from my computer!!!!)
A good follow up to try the next day is giving them clues. And have them again hold up the answer to your clues. ie:
1. I have 5 faces, 6 vertices, and 9 edges. 2 of my faces are triangles and the rest are rectangles. What solid shape am I?
2. I have 5 vertices and 5 faces. 4 faces are triangles and the other is a rectangle. What solid shape am I?
3. I have no edges, no faces, and no vertices. What solid shape am I?
