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!

Building Sentences

I am more mathematical minded than language. Language sometimes frustrates me- it is my weaker area. Teaching kids how to write can be a great challenge. You can model good sentences, you can try to explain how to write good sentences, but what do you do if that doesn't seem to be helping? I was racking my brain for new ideas until a friend shared this sentence-building exercise with me. It makes developing a good sentence so easy for beginning writers.

First, the child writes a simple sentence which includes a noun and a verb and then progressively adds more words to the sentence according to the following structure:

• sentence:                The girl cried.
• which:                       The young girl.
• how:                         The young girl cried silently.
• where:                      The young girl cried silently in her room.
• when:                       The young girl cried silently in her room last night.

 I created a sentence-building page to make it easier to remember the "which, how, where, etc."

I have it posted in the free download section of my site Montessori For Learning.


Find more great montessori materials at Montessori for Learning!