Geometry math lessons

We started the Geometry unit in Math right before break. Monday we didn't have our really cool manipulatives that were bought for us, so we did the lesson from the book.


Which worked, but I am afraid that they will forget it all by the 6th when they come back to school.

Tuesday we had the manipulatives, so we did the geometry snowflakes.

We started with this:

From Our life as an Air Force Family

And ended up with this:

From Our life as an Air Force Family

(different students)

Wednesday we did the symetrical snowflakes. You start with this:and you end up with this:

Thursday, we missed recess before lunch, due to cleaning up from our art projects. I really was dreading having to keep them cooped up inside, when the weather was once again beautiful outside.

Then I remembered a suggestion that was made in one of our math conferences. Use the math around you to see what they can tell you about the shapes and angles that are in their every day lives. So we went outside for 30 minutes. (15 for the assignment, 15 for play for most of them, there were a few that it took all 30 minutes to find what they needed).

Their assignment was to take their writing notebooks and write down at least 20 objects that they found in nature, and what shapes and angles they were.

Here is a small sample of what they found.

Radio transmitter, sphere. Dandilions/circles, leaves/diamonds


Rock, parallelogram

clouds, triangles

light pole/cylinder, basketball backboards/squares, basketball hoops/circles





bell on the building/circle

bricks/rectangles

light/square, building/cube

scoreboard/rectangle, fence panels/rectangles, trees/cylinders/triangles

All in all, it was a great lesson. The weather was perfect (mid 70's) and they had a great time. It worked out great to show them that we use geometry every day, in everything that we touch. We just may not know that it is geometry.