THINGS THAT FLY Getting Ready What Yo ll Need Geoboards, 1 per child Rbber bands Geodot paper, pages 90-92 Overhead Geoboard and/or geodot paper transparency (optional) Overview Children let their imaginations take over as they se their Geoboards to create pictres of anything that can fly. Then they sort their pictres and post them as a graph. In this activity, children have the opportnity to: represent an object on the Geoboard make a paper-and-pencil representation of a Geoboard shape sort and classify shapes organize and analyze information in a graph LOGIC NUMBER GEOMETRY Conting Comparing Graphing The Activity Introdcing Explain to children that today the Geoboard will become their drawing tool. Ask children why a Geoboard can be better than paper and pencil for drawing pictres. Help children to realize that the paper-andpencil artist has to erase pictres he or she doesn t want; whereas, the Geoboard artist simply removes rbber bands to make a pictre disappear, then begins again.
On Their Own Use as many rbber bands as yo like to make a pictre of something that can fly. Experiment ntil yo find something that yo especially like. Then copy yor pictre onto geodot paper. Use a rler to draw straight lines if yo want to. Share yor pictres with each other. The Bigger Pictre Thinking and Sharing Begin a class graph by asking one child to show his or her pictre and tell what it is. Write that descriptive word for example, Bird at the bottom of the first colmn on the graph. Now have the child post the pictre in that colmn. Invite other children with pictres that belong in the same colmn to post them there. Then create additional colmns by following the same process. Contine ntil there are no frther colmns needed, and ntil all of the pictres are posted. Use prompts sch as these to promote class discssion: What do yo notice as yo look at the graph? How many colmns are there? Which colmn has the most pictres? Which has the fewest? How many pictres are there altogether? How many fewer are there than? How do yo know this? How many more are there than? How do yo know this? Are there more pictres of living things or things made by people? How many more? How do yo know this? Is there a colmn that has more than one design in it? How are the designs in that colmn alike? How are they different? Which shapes are made p of? (sqares, triangles, etc.) Children typically create sch things as rockets, kites, btterflies, airplanes, and birds. Drawing and Writing Ask children to show and describe what the graph might look like if they made Toys We Like on their Geoboards. Extending the Activity Collect children s topic sggestions, and se some or all of these to repeat the activity.
Teacher Talk Where s the Mathematics? In this activity, children are encoraged to be imaginative. Since the topic Things That Fly is a familiar one, and one that sggests many possibilities, children are likely to feel comfortable as they se their Geoboards creatively. Yong children may find the task of transferring their pictres from the Geoboard to geodot paper qite a challenge. In order to reprodce their original pictre, children mst careflly cont pegs on their Geoboard and then careflly cont dots on the paper to be sre that they are transferring their design correctly. This activity stretches children in varios ways. As children create a bar graph by sorting their pictres into categories, and then interpret the information on the graph, they are acqiring experience with statistical organization and analysis. Btterflies Rockets Kites Planes
In the process of talking abot the data they have posted, children cont, combine, and compare nmerical data, thereby deepening their nmber sense. Qestions sch as, Are there more pictres of living things or of things made by people? reqire children to se higher order thinking skills as they sort each category into living things or manfactred things, and then have to find each total and compare those two totals before they reach a final answer. When children notice that btterflies (as one example) don t all look alike, yet are all groped together, children learn more abot making generalizations. Answering the qestion, Which shapes are made p of? (sqares, triangles, etc.) gives children the opportnity to focs on the properties of geometric figres and to analyze more complex shapes in search of the simpler geometric shapes that nderlie their constrction. Some children may be distracted by the many overlapping shapes and have troble recognizing the simpler shapes nderneath. Before they can identify sch shapes, these children may first need to trace the rbber bands or lines of the shape with their finger, or trn a pictre so that the shape is in a more familiar orientation. Children may also mentally add lines, especially lines of symmetry, and identify even more shapes. For example, some children may look at the following shape of a qadrilateral, mentally add a line of symmetry down the middle, and point ot the two triangles that they see.
GEODOT PAPER - 2 GRIDS
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