Math Reflection Week 8: Geometry and Lesson Plans

  This week our math class got the chance to dive into the curriculum strand of geometry and spatial sense.  Geometry and patterning have always been my favorite math subjects growing up, so I excited to see what my fellow student teachers would do with their learning activities.  I was not disappointed, all of the learning activity presentations this week were great.  The first thing we got a chance to do was plotting points on a grid and connecting them to form an image.  You can find that resource here if you're interested.  As I stated earlier I really enjoyed this weeks learning activities, particularly the ones which included manipulatives.  One activity had us using various polygonal shapes to fit within a large diamond shaped asteroid. 

Michael Feagan. (Nov. 4, 2016). Asteroid Shapes [photo].

  We had to to recreate this shape using different guidelines or restrictions such as it being symmetrical or using at least two hexagons.  I love these kinds of activities for students because it gets them working hands on developing their geometry and spatial sense skills.  Obviously this activity exercises fairly basic geometry skills, but I believe that it can be modified to fit higher grade levels.  The other activity that I liked involved the creation of three dimensional shapes using two dimensional nets.  I feel like this is an activity a lot of students have done even outside of math.  What I liked about how my group chose the do it, is that we used these rubber tiles and pieced them together to form a cube, pictured below.

 Michael Feagan. (Nov. 8 2016), Rubber Cube [photo].

  I always found cutting out nets from paper, gluing them together, and trying to bend it to fit into a nice cube was always a finicky task.  So for me creating it using the nice tile manipulatives saved a lot of frustration.  That being said these tiles are somewhat limited.  For example if you wanted your students to create square or triangular based pyramids these tiles would not work so well, and in that case paper nets would be best.  Still I had a lot of fun getting to manipulate geometric objects in a mathematical context again.  Unlike many things in math, knowledge of shapes, their properties, and relations to each other has never really left me and is still something I'm interested in. 

  We wrapped up our class by discussing the creation of our math lesson plans.  It is an assignment that has us getting into pairs and constructing a lessons plan for any grade, on any strand, using the Brock lesson plan template.  Many of my classes are having me constructing lesson plans and I'm definitely looking forward to it.  Making lesson plans was a skill that I felt I really needed starting this year, so I'm glad I'm finally getting some experience in doing it.  Me and my partner will be designing a lesson plan for a grade 4 class that involves the construction of 3D shapes using 2D paper nets.  So it ties in strongly with what we practiced in class that week.  Progress on this lesson plan has already come along nicely, and I look forward to any feedback on it in the coming weeks.