Geoboard Lesson # 2

For the second lesson using Geoboards, I have decided to work with similar and congruent figures. This is a topic that is best taught using visual aides. It is quite impossible to teach without the use of visuals. First, the lesson would begin with a general direction to students such as: Everyone make a square on your Geoboard. Then, attention would be brought to the fact that the squares that the students made looked different, while others looked the same. As a class, these discoveries would be examined. Next, the class would come up with examples of acceptable definitions for similar figures and congruent figures. Several practice round would assess student understanding.

At this point, students would be split up into groups. Using dice, students will be prompted to create similar figures if they roll an odd number or to create congruent figures if they roll an even number. Each student will take turns rolling the dice, creating a figure, and watching as their partner creates either a similar figure or a congruent figure.

The lesson would end with a reference to the concept of probability that the dice incorporated into the lesson to be explored further at a later date.

NLVM - Week 8

This week I explored the Tessellations manipulative on the National Library site. At the end of each school year I expose my students to tessellations and assign a project in which they have to create their own original tessellation. This assignment always proves challenging for most of the students in my class. They are under the impression that a tessellation is the same thing as a picture or a pattern. They often leave gaps in their design and as a result, their design is not a tessellation. I like this manipulative because it gives students a way to, for lack of a better word, manipulate the shapes and see how they can fit together.

I would have found this manipulative more usefull if it started out by giving students a parial tessellation and asking them to continue the tessellation. This would be extremely helpful to my students who have trouble visualizing what a tessellation should look like. Once the students have done several tasks like this, it would be great if the tasks then turning into independent tasks such as: make a tesselation of triangles, etc. Overall, I find this manipulative beneficial and plan to use it with my kids, I just wished it provided more guidance.