Hold and Fold

Today we worked with shapes some more in math workshop. Students were given a square piece of paper to manipulate and transform into other shapes based on initial folds we did together. The point of this lesson was to help students become more familiar with shapes they don't use all that often, as well as to help them understand that some familiar shapes do not all look exactly the same.

We were able to revisit vocabulary terms such as congruent, parallel, angle, corner, side, and rotate. We also reviewed prefixes and number word roots like penta, hex, and tri. Students discovered shapes that were different such as the pentagon and trapezoid, and realized that as long as the shape met the basic requirements it could still be the same shape and look different. For example all hexagons will not look the same, but they do all have six sides and six corners.

We did a lot of discussion today and students were encouraged to justify their answers and share how they discovered the different shapes. I was able to observe their willingness to take risks, and how inventive and flexible they could be in be with their work.