Start your students out on their geographical tour of Europe with this free, printable Europe Map Worksheet.
Infographic by Global Digital Citizen
Explore a curated compilation of online resources for aligning project-based learning with the Common Core State Standards.
Learning about landforms with a hands-on landform building and narrative writing project.
Free essays, homework help, flashcards, research papers, book reports, term papers, history, science, politics
This activity is all over pinterest! What a great way to introduce the concept of area and perimeter to kids! Start out creating squar...
This is a differentiated math menu that was created for Grade 6 students as a part of a transdisciplinary unit entitled, How We Express Ourselves.
A blog about teaching and 6th grade.
Back to School is right around the corner for us and I am SUPER excited to kick of this school year with some fun, hands-on and engaging resources for The
A blog about free resources for the secondary math classroom.
The creativity and generosity of the online teaching community never ceases to amaze me. I have spent a couple of weeks collating resources for my department from my Twitter back catalogue, an…
A blog about free resources for the secondary math classroom.
FREEBIE Worksheet, Bell Work, Guided Notes, PowerPoint and Much More to Help you Teach Your Lesson on Simplifying Radicals.
TEACHER: "TOG, CAN YOU TELL THE CLASS HOW MANY CONTINENTS THERE ARE?" EARLY GEOGRAPHY CLASS
So, I re-vamped my mini unit over area of regular polygons from last year and I definitely saw some improvement in scores. I think next year, we decided as a team that we are going to include area of regular polygons into our area and perimeter unit. Day 1: We labeled the parts of regular triangles on our regular polygons graphic organizer. After the graphic organizer, I had students mark the angles of regular triangles on the front of their foldable. Once we labeled the front of the foldable, we only completed 2 examples of finding the area of regular triangles. Looking back now, maybe "less is more" when introducing new topics. After the 2 examples over regular triangles, students completed the Area of Regular Triangles Partner WS. I have been creating more of these worksheets because students prefer partner activities more than any other worksheet I give them. Each person completes a separate column from their partner and will both receive the same answer if they solved the problem correctly. There is a lot of discussion going on during partner worksheets because they go over both columns to see where they made a mistake (if they both get different answers). Day 2: I had students open their notebook up to the graphic organizer and we labeled the parts of regular quadrilaterals and regular hexagons. I decided to do two sections today since they did so well yesterday. Again, it was a success and some of my students decided against using A = 1/2Pa to find the area of a regular quadrilateral. They realized once they found the length of each side, they could just use A = s². Day 3: Today was a Scavenger Hunt sort of day and I had students break up into groups of 2-3 and start at a station. I printed these out and hung them up outside of my classroom to get students moving. Scavenger hunts are great for students to self-check their work because if they do not see their answer on another poster, then they made a mistake in their work. Do any other teachers receive a lot of groans and moans about scavenger hunts? About half of my students do NOT like getting up out of their seat and doing scavenger hunts. I wonder if its because a lot of teachers from different subjects are now starting to implement these into their lessons? Day 4: I reserved the computer lab for students to log-on to b.socrative.com and take an online practice quiz. I actually took the scavenger hunt from yesterday and made it into a quiz and not a single student noticed that I did this :). I chose the Student Navigation option and had students take their time to navigate through the quiz. I told them before they press finish, come see me so I can check their work. If you press "Live Results", you can see what each problem the student missed/got correct. Overall, day 4 was pretty awesome because my students like going to the computer lab. If you would like to use the quiz, SOC-21128839. Please leave feedback if any of these lessons went well/didn't go well in your classroom so I can see what I need to re-vamp again for next year. Thanks! Here are the files that I used for my unit over area of regular polygons: Area of Regular Polygons Foldable: Click Here Area of Regular Polygons Scavenger Hunt: Click Here
Practice recognizing and counting basic geometric shapes with this printable worksheet. How many shapes do you see in this picture?
I must admit that our Geometric Solids have been rarely used in our classroom, probably because it didn't inspire the children. The children have been introduced to the names of each solids but this is not a popular activity. I had been thinking about extending the exercise but never gor around it until I finally got onto Montessori for Everyone and downloaded a set of matching cards to be used in conjunction with the geometric solids. The set of cards depicts each of the Geometric Solids with several corresponding photos for each shape. The photos represent objects in the child’s environment/community. I made a set of 10 labelled geometric solid cards to be placed under each solid and a set of 30 picture cards for sorting. I placed them all in a basket, right beside the geometric solids on our sensorial shelves. The child will be asked to first match the geometric solid cards to the solids. Then, he picks the set of picture cards and places each one of them under their corresponding solid. Picture borrows from Montessori Albums The first thing I do is to bring a child to the sensorial shelves and tell him/her that I am going to show him/her how to work with a new piece of material. I use the work cycle to present the exercise At the start of the lesson, we first place the solids horizontally from left to right on the top of the mat. I then re-introduce the names of the solids. As I go over each name, I point at the name labelled on the cards. I introduce the matching Geometric Solid cards and show the child how to match them to the solids. Once the child is successful with the first set of cards, I then invite her to sort the remaining picture cards underneath. Everytimethe child places a card underneath a solid card, I ask her/him why she/he does so, enticing her/him to think about the shape and its characteristics. Once child placed the tent under the rectangular prism and when asked why, he said: “well, it has a rectangle shape here and a triangle shape here. And I have slept in a tent before with my Mam and Dad, so I know”. This comment spurred a flow of other comments from the children who eagerly shared their own experience. Once the exercise is completed, I show the child how she could turn the cards around and check for herself if her work was correct. Each card is colour-coded for control of error. I then show her how to tidy up the picture cards first from left to right, row by row. Then we pick up the labelled geometric cards from left to right. We place all the cards back in their basket. We then pick up all the solids from left to right and place them all in their basket. Both baskets are then returned to the sensorial shelves. I have to admit, this is not a table top activity and I should have presented the exercise on the floor. There is always room for improvement!!! All in all though, I found this activity absolutely brilliant for several reasons: During one of my many presentations, many children gathered up around Millie ( 4 years old) and myself. I was surprised with the visual impact the cards created once they were all laid out with the Geometric Solids. In fact, throughout the lesson, several children in the classroom came to see what the "new work" was and I heard more remark, "Oooh, what's that? I want to do that!" It was heartening to see a new interest develop in the Geometric Solids sparked by this set. Children may make several observations about this work. This activity was brilliant to begin discussions. First of all, the children realised quickly that certain shapes are much more likely to occur in nature (ellipsoids) while others are much more likely to occur in human made construction (pyramids). And the ones made by men are much harder to find than the others. It was wonderful to see the children speculate as to why that is, and brainstorm about other examples of each of these types of solids. The children’s range of vocabulary as we revised the names of all the solids and compared them to their day-to-day usage. For instance, people commonly refer to any structure that starts broadly and ends narrowly as a pyramid (a child’s tower of blocks, for example). The children know to spot the differences between a square-based pyramid and a triangular pyramid. It got the children to look at the details of each shape more carefully by comparing and matching. So if you want to stimulates your children’s awareness of geometric shapes, this is the way to go! The activity introduces them to mathematical concepts (geometry) And believe it or not, but the whole exercise indirectly introduces children to art appreciation as they learn about the specific characteristics of each solid. Ok... as I am studying like mad at the moment for my Montessori Degree, I decided to link this activity to theory. So, you may want to quit the reading of this post right here as it is going to get a bit "boring" for some of you!!! But believe me, it is a great practising exercise for me. So just bear with me!! "Teachers in general are continually looking for ways to guide students’ understanding of mathematical concepts. Contemporary research has demonstrated that pre-schoolers need opportunities to explore their world and experience mathematics. There are 3 fundamental mathematical concepts that form the building blocks of mathematical and scientific knowledge: matching, classification, order & seriation. The development of these concepts allows the children to organize and categorize information so that when they start formal schooling, they begin to apply fundamental concepts by exploring ideas both in maths and science (Charlesworth and Lind, 1999). The constructivist paradigm based on Piaget’s (1955) theory of cognitive development has long provided a framework for educational practices in which children gain concepts trough involvement with the environment and construct their knowledge as they explore their surroundings. This means using manipulative materials that enable children to engage in active learning. Using pictures of objects that can be found in the children’s everyday life gives them the right experience in assessing the different characteristics of the solids and help the children to place them in their environment. Also, having a print rich, or literacy rich environment is an important aspect of a child’s literacy education. According to one study, exposure to written language helps children develop a number of things including: awareness of print, phonemic awareness, letter naming, listening comprehension and eventually word reading. (Gunn, Simmons, & Kameenui, 1995, 3). Marie Clay (Teale & Sulzby, 1986) was the first person to introduce the term emergent literacy to describe the behaviors used by young children with books and printed words, even though the children could not actually read and write in the conventional sense. Mary Clay suggests that literacy development begins way before children start formal instruction in elementary school (Teale & Sulzby, 1986). Children have been found to learn about written language as they actively engage with adults in reading and writing situations; as they explore print on their own; and as they observe others around them engaged in literacy activities (Teale & Sulzby, 1986). For example, when hearing me say the word “ellipsoid” a few times and pointing at the printed word at the same time, the children are not just memorizing the word, but actually learning that printed words carry a meaning. And this is why labelling is very important. In a Montessori environment, we use lots of nomenclatures and 3 part-cards with words printed on the cards. Just like in this activity. Repetition will provide experience for the children and help them associate the printed word with its meaning or what it represents." I hope I make sense!
