Patch Tool

Use this tool to design a pattern using geometric shapes.

Shape Tool

This tool allows you to create any geometric shape imaginable. Squares, triangles, rhombi, trapezoids and hexagons can be created, colored, enlarged, shrunk, rotated, reflected, sliced, and glued together.

Making Rectangles

In this activity, students use their knowledge of number, measurement and geometry to plan the steps necessary for a ladybug to draw rectangles of different sizes. As they experiment, students begin to understand the relationship between the shape of a rectangle and the lengths of its sides. They also develop a sense of the amount of turn in a right angle.

Making Triangles

In this activity, students use 45- and 90-degree angles to create triangles, and develop an understanding of the relationship between angles and the shape of triangle. Students use their knowledge of number, measurement and geometry to design a "virtual path" using two different angles to help a ladybug reach its hiding place under a leaf.

Making Virtual Triangles

In this lesson, students use virtual manipulatives to explore triangles. They create virtual representations of triangles on an electronic geoboard. They also identify shapes within shapes using tangrams. This activity is appropriate for a computer lab, so all students have access to the virtual manipulatives.

Mapping All of Me

Students use the knowledge and skills gained from previous lesson by placing yarn strips appropriately on 4' × 3' strips of paper and drawing around them to create a map of their body. Then the students use directional and positional words to describe their body map.

Get the Turtle to the Pond

This activity provides opportunities for creative problem solving while encouraging young students to estimate length and angle measure. Using the Turtle Pond Applet, students enter a sequence of commands to help the turtle get to the pond. Children can write their own solutions using LOGO commands and input them into the computer. The turtle will then move and leave a trail or path according to the instructions given.

Ladybug Adventures

Build ideas about navigation and location, as described in the Geometry Standard, and use these ideas to solve problems.

Investigating Shapes (Triangles)

Identify characteristics of triangles, manipulate electronic geoboards to construct triangles, and name the triangles’ relative locations.

Going Places

Build skills for measuring with non-standard units and describing, naming, interpreting, and representing relative positions in space.