Shapes & Symmetry

Two more math concepts we are covering are shapes & symmetry. We are following the "Building Shapes" plan from the Math Forum website: http://www.mathforum.com/varnelle/kgeo3.html .


There are 3 parts to each activity

1. Manipulative (using shapes as in the above picture)
2. Technology (using a website - on this activity we created hexagons on the computer just like these hexagons using the foam shapes)
3. Paper/Pencil (this time we actually used crayons to color the shapes we had made)

They also include books to read, but some look to young for us. And, two of them we just read a week or two ago, so we're skipping them. We are breaking theri 5 lessons into 3 days.
Day 1: We were creating hexagons using the following shapes: triangle, rhombus (or parallelogram), and trapezoid. Great review as we haven't used these terms in quite a while! And, she really enjoyed it. I was ready to give up and not do the last part, coloring. But, she wanted us to do it, so we did!
Day 2: We worked with rotational symmetry using our foam shapes and the computer applet. Rotational symmetry was something we've never discussed.

Day 3: We used the applet to make pictures with line symmetry. We also are covering symmetry in our regular math program, RightStart. For line symmetry, we used colored tiles. I made a picture on one side of a line, and Alexandra had to make the "mirror image." Then, she checked it with a mirror.