Week 8 - Geometry & Spatial Sense
14:21:00
I absolutely lost it in class this week when this video was played during our lesson:
I believe James Blunt's Your Beautiful was released when I was 15 years old. At the time, I believed it was the sole most romantic song ever. Never did I guess that I would rediscover my love for the sappy ballad nearly 10 years later, in math class, no less.
And yet there I was, on Monday night, learning about Geometry and Spatial Sense and absolutely cracking up over "My Triangle", Sesame Street's brilliant parody of my former favourite song.
Sesame Street has a wonderful method of pairing pop culture with educational concepts. Occasionally the show will feature a guest star, usually a popular actor or musician, to help explain principles of language, social studies and mathematics to very young children. In James Blunt's feature, a very simple geometric concept, that of a triangle, is sung in detail to children. Triangles may not seem like the most interesting concept in the world, but when they, and other geometric concepts, are addressed in a fun way, such as through song, kids become enthusiastic about learning.
In class, we applied this principle to other topics related to Geometry & Spatial Sense. Using marshmallows and toothpicks, we created geometric shapes like rectangular prisms, cubes and pyramids. This kind of activity gives kids hands-on experience with geometry while engaging them through the novelty of creating 3D objects and solids using fun materials.
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| Inrig, E. (2016, November 7). Building Shapes with Marshmallows [photograph]. Retrieved from my iPhone. |
We continued to explore other ways of making geometry fun and exciting. Gamification of geometry can be achieved through games like Tangrams and Shape Battleship. I personally enjoyed guessing shapes using Tangrams and sinking rectangular prisms on a grid while playing Shape Battleship, and I'm sure young students would love to do so as well.
1 comments
Hi Miss Inrig,
ReplyDeleteThis class really inspired me to use various forms of technology in math class, like videos and what not. It's great to see you rediscover your love for this song in math class of all places. I remember just about everyone gushing over the original version of this song way, way back in high school, too. I agree with you when you say that uninteresting topics can be made fun when they are incorporated into song. Much of the French teaching world is converted into song! If only I could sing.
There are so many ways that we as teachers can make mathematics fun and engaging. Some of the activities that you've listed, such as: constructing shapes, shape battleship and Tangrams are phenomenal ways that we can make a student's experience that much better.
Great post!