Geometry Kick

Where has time gone? I can't believe it's been this long since my last post. My kiddo's have been super busy and it seems like we've been on a geometry kick lately.  I used to hate math when I was kid and it's my passion to make it meaningful to my students so they don't hate it. I spend a lot of time explaining why the numbers and "things" work.  This can be hard for geometry because many of the concepts are abstract.

One of the key elements of helping students understand geometry is giving them time to explore. This is easily done with pattern blocks, but what can be done for concepts like rays, line segments, lines, etc.? Fret no more! Download triangles, lines, and circles to engage your students in exploration.

I started with allowing the kids to "play" with them. I challenged them to see what they could create, then we walked around saw what the students made, and then slowly we started making geometric concepts. Man, was I blown away. Our third grade teachers did such a good job preparing them, and boy do I have to thank them!

Now, I did cut out all the shapes beforehand so it would be a focused process on the content since I have a few squirrels in my room. However, one may contend I'm nuts. I promise the use of my handy paper cutter this took no more than 30 minutes to prep!

How do you get your students involved in geometry exploration?