[kikiteach]

Hi All-
Any advice or ideas on teaching geometry in fourth grade?

[Jodi4/5]

The Greedy Triangle is a great book to start teaching geometry concepts to fourth graders! It is about a triangle that wants to be "more" so keeps getting more sides and angles. Cute story!
What curriculum are you using?

[kristen_teach]

What specific topics are you teaching?

Try to tie it into the real world as much as possible. Bring in pictures of architecture and have them label points, lines, rays, different triangles and shapes, etc. (whatever topics you are studying).

If you are doing area and perimeter, you can do a lot of graph paper- have them count the squares and then look for the patterns.

Let me know what topics and I can give you more specifics.

[Risa]

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 students using the same idea!)

Everytime we said the word 'area' we acted like we were wiping the inside of a square (or rectangle) with a flat hand. This was to remind them that area refers to the inside of a shape.

Oh! Something else I did after we were well into our unit on perimeter and area was to have students take graph paper and create a variety of shapes. We took their shapes and glued them onto chart paper. Working around the charts in small groups, they found the area and perimeter of each shape.

The following are some of the websites I used for myself to get information, or with my students to help reinforce some of the concepts with internet games.

Geometry Related Web Sites

Mrs. Renz-4th Grade Geometry Websites
http://www.redmond.k12.or.us/mccall/...sites.htm#geom

Flips, Turns, Rotations
http://www.misterteacher.com/abc.html

Geometry Lesson Plans
http://mathforum.org/geometry/geom.units.html

Lesson Plans-Teach-nology-LOTS of ideas here
http://www.teach-nology.com/teachers...math/geometry/

Area formulas for plane shapes
http://www.mathsisfun.com/area.html

Virtual manipulatives (online activities)
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/topic_t_3.html

Symmetry-video/audio explanation
http://www.linkslearning.org/Kids/1_...Line_Symmetry/