"Bloques lógicos"

Here we have another manipulative resource to use in our classes. It consists of 48 pieces (squares, triangles, circles and rectangles), with 3 different colours, 2 sizes and 2 different thicknesses. Thus, each piece has four different variables: shape, size, thickness and colour. We can find many varieties of logical blocks, made from wooden or plastic. 

It is a resource that can be used from pre-school to primary school, creating entertaining activities such as the creation of figures, basic areas and symmetry. As you can see, we can introduce basic geometric concepts since pre-school, using a dynamic methodology making the students enjoy maths. 

Mathspace App

In this digital era, we can find a lot of digital resources to use in our classes, from online webpages to apps for teachers and students. Today I would like to show you a really interesting app, "Mathspace".

 It is a free resource for students and if teachers want to use it in their class they need to pay a small amount of money for it. I think that all schools can afford to pay this resource and it would be a good investment since this app allows the students to solve online problems and receive instant feedback and help at every step. This way, we are monitoring and helping the students during their learning process. 

Mathspace has over 70000 interactive questions about algebra, geometry, probability and statistics. With this resource, they avoid the use of textbooks which can be a boring and demotivating resource.

Here you have some images about it.

Creating with toothpicks!

There is no excuse to work without using manipulative activities in class. It is not necessary to spend a lot of money buying resources since the teacher and the students can create their own materials. For instance, in order to work on geometric shapes we can use toothpicks and plasticine or gummies. 

This activity will motivate our students since they would be working freely and developing their imagination. We can ask our students to create geometric shapes with a certain number of toothpicks and then they will have to guess which is the figure they have created. To do this, we will explain to our students that the number of toothpicks is the sides or edges of the figure and the plasticine or gummies are the vertexes. 

In these photos you can see some examples of how to create geometric shapes with this economic material. 

Do not hesitate to use it in your class! 

Playing with the cartesian plane

As we know, all children enjoy playing games and competing between them. We can use this motivation in our classes in order to arouse the interest of our student and to make dynamic classes. Applying games in classes we are developing the methodology learning by doing, which help the students to internalize and learn easily the concepts.

Here I leave you a video that explains a game about the cartesian plane and coordinates. Through these types of games, we are motivating our students to learn at the same time that they are having fun.

I hope you enjoy the video and use it in your classes! 

Khan Academy

Here you have a really useful website that you can use in your geometry class. 
Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization created by Salman Khan, an American professor, computer scientist, electrical engineer and mathematician in 2006. 

It provides free education to everyone, having more than 4000 instructional videos for primary and secondary school about maths, physics, biology, chemistry, economics and more subjects. Apart from the videos, it offers practical activities that the teacher can send to his/her students in order to do them in class or at home. 

Between some of its advantages, we can find the fact of helping students to learn individually, progressing according to their needs. As we know, in all classes we find students that need reinforcement to acquire some knowledge or competences so these videos will help them to review the content at home. Furthermore, using this website we are providing visual learning which helps the students to understand easily the content of the unit. 

I encourage you to visit this website and discover the amount of videos that it offers!

https://es.khanacademy.org/

Geoboard

At this post we will discover another digital resource called Geoboard, a free app for teachers and students. 

Is an educational tool for exploring a variety of mathematical topics introduced in the elementary and middle grades. Learners stretch bands around the pegs to form line segments and polygons. They can also make discoveries about perimeter, area, angles, congruence...

As you see, is the digital version of the “geoplano”, which can be used in those classes where children have access to an electronic device. This way, we are developing digital competence which is so important in our digital era.

Tangram

Here we have another manipulative educational resource that we can use in our classes to make them funnier. Tangram is a Chinese game consisting of seven elements: five triangles of three different sizes, a square and a parallelogram. All these figures together form a square. It can be used in all cycles of primary education since you can create activities with different levels of complexity. 

With this resource students can learn the forms of the figures, the composition and decomposition of the same ones, promoting creativity in our students since this game present many possibilities due to the combination of its pieces. The advantage of this material is that children can create their own tangram with the help of the teacher and use it then for the activities. 

Here you can see some images about using tangram in geometry classes: 

Plickers in your geometry class!

As we know, one of the key competences that our students need to acquire is the digital competence. Because of that, we need to introduce Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in our classes. Moreover, they help the teacher to give dynamic and entertaining classes, motivating the student to learn in a fun way.

I would like to share with you an amazing educational tool that we can use in our math classes. Its name is Plickers, a free app that can be used for learning in a different way, assessing the students and reviewing the lesson given. It is very useful since you only need the teacher's computer and your mobile phone or another device, such an iPad. This is an advantage since not all schools have a computer for every student, so it is a way of implementing ICT in all schools.

Here is a video explaining how a teacher uses plickers in his classroom. I invite you to see it and use this tool in your classes. 

Geoboard, known as "geoplano".

This is a manipulative teaching resource that you can use in your class in order to teach geometric shapes. This material can help the students to understand abstract concepts since they can create polygons and figures with this resource.

It is a square board on which tacks or nails are placed so that you can create polygonal figures stretching rubber bands across the tacks. This way, we are teaching geometric concepts through a manipulative way, carrying out the methodology "learning by doing",  where the student learn by practising.

We can also use the geoboard in order to learn about symmetry axis and translation. For instance, we ask the student to complete a symmetric figure or to move it some tacks to the right. Children will love working with this material because they are learning and playing at the same time,

so let's use it in our classes! 

The importance of geometry

Hi again! Here you have some important points that describe the importance of geometry.

• As you know, we live in a three-dimensional world in which we can find geometric shapes everywhere, squares, circles, cubes, spheres... Because of that, our students need to learn vocabulary about shapes in order to be able to talk about what they see. 

• Another use of geometry is spatial orientation. It is very important to teach our students how to read a map being able to move from one position to other. Moreover, this content allows us to create dynamic and interesting activities that students will enjoy a lot. 

• Geometry is also present in art, for instance, decorating your house you pay attention to geometric shapes and the concept of symmetry, which is in our daily life. 

• Finally, one of the most important concepts about geometry is the development of spatial or visual thinking, which enables the students to think from pictures, organize their ideas and explain them through mental pictures. This can be developed, for instance, practising the imagination of geometric shapes in your mind. 

I leave you here a video really interesting about what geometry is and the importance of geometry in our daily life. I hope you like it! 

Welcome to my space!

Hello everyone! 

Firstly, I have to say that I am delighted that you visit my blog. 
My name is Cristina and I am 21 years old. I have created this blog for the subject of Didactics of Geometry, belonging to the third year of Primary Education at the University of Málaga. 

In this blog you will find information about geometry in primary education. This is a space to share with you the importance of Geometry at school. We will see how important geometry is for our students and which resources, materials, methodologies and techniques we can use in our classes to create dynamic lessons and encourage our students to learn about this amazing subject. As you can see, this blog will help all teachers that want to improve their classes to transmit the pleasure for geometry to their students.

I really hope you enjoy this blog and you find it useful.