Elements of Geometry

We have been studyiing the history of geometry. I have to admit that I forgot how facinating it all is. My husband thinks I am a little crazy,  but I find it very interesting and thankfully so do the kids.

We researched the ancient methods of surveying and measuring and talked about how they did not have the modern tools that we have today. I also download Euclid's book Elements and we looked at his definitions and principles and compared them to what we use today.

I found some awesome resources online to add to our geometry study.  http://www.korthalsaltes.com/  had templates for Platonic solids, Archimedean Solids, polyhedra, pyramids, prisms, and more.

Here is a picture of a couple of our creations:

Yesterday, we also practiced polygon sorting. I created  montessori materials for this activity that are available for download.



We also had to do a few errands, so I made a polygon scavenger hunt. We had loads of fun and it was interesting how they realized how important "shapes" and geometry are in our lives, especially since we found most of them in building structures and shelving structures -we realized just how important complementary triangles and rectangles were important to the stability of it all.


Click free montessori materials to download the polygon scavenger hunt.

We also incorporated writing and history into our study of platonic solids. We researched famous presidents and 
created a bio-cube on ReadWriteThink.

 Whew! It's been a busy week!

Turning a Circle into a Square

It doesn’t take much to excite my children – or me either, to be quite honest. I had a Mickey Mouse Magic Book when I was five. I fell in love with a dollar bill trick. You hold it up and fold it a certain way and when you unfold it, it is upside down. I still remember that trick and have mesmerized my children with it many times.

When I found an activity about forming simple shapes, I knew they would love it. It explained how to make a square from a circle. I vaguely remember doing things like this in elementary school, but I had forgotten it until I was looking for some geometric shape ideas. This was the perfect follow up for our geometric shape nomenclature cards.

We cut, folded, and created for hours! Does anyone need any extra “circle-squares?”