I must be brain dead I am getting ready to start a chapter on geometry. This week I will be teaching lines, line segments, rays, parallel lines, intersecting lines, acute, obtuse, and right triangles, and angels. Anyone have ideas for teaching these skills? Any hands on projects or activities? Any ideas will be much appreciated!
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.
piggy backing on the previous poster's idea. We do 'pencil exercises'.
I tell them it is time to exercise their pencils. They pull out 2 from their desks (markers work, too). I then call out various terms....parallell, perpendicular, acute, etc. and they put their pencils in the correct formation. I sometimes let the kids come up and be the leader, too.
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!
Use pictures from magazines, newspapers, your own photos, etc. The ideal situation is having a document camera... most don't, but you can make transparencies, hold pictures up, etc. Have children to find different elements in the pictures and you will be amazed at the amount of vocabulary that is used in just a few minutes.
Examples- With a picture torn from a recent Good Housekeeping I found a Vaseline Intensive Care lotion ad. There are hands all over the page. The students started out saying they saw a pattern and diagonal lines. We then progressed to congruency, tesselations, etc. One child said, "Hey, we can use this picture to skip count by fours". We did!
I am amazed at what they find in the pictures and the vocabulary they use. They bring pictures in themselves and I bring them in also. We keep a box in the room.
Search out magazine pictures that show symmetry, the bigger the better. Cut the pictures in half, glue it on 12X9 paper, and have the students replicate the other half with the edge of the picture as the line of symmetry.
I am wondering if there is a website of line drawings that could also be used....hmmmm, anyone have any thoughts.
I had third graders stand up and act out the various lines with their bodies, such as all the way to knees for acute and bent at waist for right. They loved that.
If you still need ideas, I do a 10 minute weekly or even daily physical exercise that covers line, rays, line segments, parrallel perp., etc., angles, verticle, horizontal, laterals, slides flips reflections and much more! By the time we get to geometry the children already know their basics and we get through a lot more much quicker. The kids love it and it breaks up seat time! kittsj<img src="images/smilies/symb....mg" />ucps.org for more info.
01-06-2008, 04:52 PM
I am getting ready to start a chapter on geometry. This week I will be teaching lines, line segments, rays, parallel lines, intersecting lines, acute, obtuse, and right triangles, and angels. Anyone have ideas for teaching these skills? Any hands on projects or activities? Any ideas will be much appreciated!
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