Sunday, November 21, 2010

Geometric Math

We spent the last 2 weeks following part of Eric Fairman's Path of Discovery 2nd grade guide. I loved the concept of Geometric Math and since this was our first Math block this year, it was a gentle interactive way to re-introduce.
Here are some of the pictures and drawing we did.  The girls really enjoyed this and I did too. It was amazing the "feel" they got from walking and drawing these designs.


The last part was to tell the story of the Circle & the Square and then free hand draw a square within a circle. However, there was no story given in the guide. So, I made one up I thought you may enjoy it and feel free to adapt it for your lessons.

The Circle and The Square:

Once there was a circle laying flat on the ground. He didn't mind looking up at the clouds going by during the day and the twinkling stars at night. But, one day he heard a lot of noise and fun coming from down the street. The more he listened, the more he wished he could go see what was happening that seemed like so much fun! If only he could life himself up, maybe he could see. He struggled, and struggled and then- he was up! Wow, he looked around by turning himself this way and that. He could see all around and he heard the commotion coming from the next block. The circle started rolling down the hill! When he got to top of the next hill, he spied a square, laying around as he used to be. He told the square his tale of lifting himself up and heading toward the fun sounds. the square wanted to join him. He lifted himself up and looked around. But when he tried to "roll" he just kept falling down. The circle got an idea and asked the square to jump up into him and hang on. Then away they went!
They found a carnival at the end of street and what fun they had rolling around checking out all the sites.
(I used a lid from a jelly jar as the circle and a square post-it note to demonstrate while I told the story)

Enjoy!

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