Last week during our initial revisit to shapes, we experimented using modeling clay, straws and sticks to make shapes. We then were introduced to drawing these shapes using rulers to make straight lines.
Within this study, one student drew a circle with two dots (representing corners). She had forgotten that we were only drawing shapes that we could use our ruler for to draw straight sides. This 'mistake', however, led to some great inquiry.
As we examined each other's shapes, some students pointed out that the circle did not have any sides because they weren't made using a ruler, and therefore weren't straight. Other students thought that it had two sides, as represented in the original drawing. Still another small group argued that a circle has four sides and the drawing should actually have been made with four dots (top, bottom, left and right). So we were at a stand-still. How many sides does a circle actually have?
The next day, we decided to inquire into this a bit further. With pins representing the corners (or modeling clay as used in the previous lesson), and yarn representing the sides, we set to work taking on different challenges. The first challenge was to work in teams to use the pins and yarn to make a triangle. With our fairly sound knowledge of the properties of triangles, this was fairly easy.
And finally, our last challenge was to use our pins and string to make a circle. This was tricky and we really had to use cooperation to get it just right.
Created with flickr slideshow.
After we had a chance to listen to each group argue, we had one more opportunity to change places. This ended up with the class almost equally divided amongst two circles -- the green and red.
So what made these two shapes resemble circles more closely than the others? We determined that the more pins used, the more circular the shape. And so, we came to (well, just about) what we think may be the answer :
Within this study, one student drew a circle with two dots (representing corners). She had forgotten that we were only drawing shapes that we could use our ruler for to draw straight sides. This 'mistake', however, led to some great inquiry.
As we examined each other's shapes, some students pointed out that the circle did not have any sides because they weren't made using a ruler, and therefore weren't straight. Other students thought that it had two sides, as represented in the original drawing. Still another small group argued that a circle has four sides and the drawing should actually have been made with four dots (top, bottom, left and right). So we were at a stand-still. How many sides does a circle actually have?
The next day, we decided to inquire into this a bit further. With pins representing the corners (or modeling clay as used in the previous lesson), and yarn representing the sides, we set to work taking on different challenges. The first challenge was to work in teams to use the pins and yarn to make a triangle. With our fairly sound knowledge of the properties of triangles, this was fairly easy.
Next we were challenged to make a rectangle. We know that squares are a special kind of rectangle, so we determined squares were also acceptable. This was a bit more challenging as we realized that the placement of the pins (corners) had to be more precise in order to make the sides be "straight up and down or straight side to side" (parallel).
And finally, our last challenge was to use our pins and string to make a circle. This was tricky and we really had to use cooperation to get it just right.
We stood back and looked at each group's 'circles'. Some of them looked a lot more like circles than others. What made this so? We spent the day thinking about this and then revisited pictures of our creations the following day. Each group's 'circle' was displayed and we had to determine of these we thought most closely resembled a circle. We moved throughout the room and clustered into groups to show our thinking. We then worked within that small group to discuss why we thought the way we did. What made us choose the shape that we did? We followed this by defending our ideas against other groups.
These were our collective group thoughts:
Created with flickr slideshow.
After we had a chance to listen to each group argue, we had one more opportunity to change places. This ended up with the class almost equally divided amongst two circles -- the green and red.
So what made these two shapes resemble circles more closely than the others? We determined that the more pins used, the more circular the shape. And so, we came to (well, just about) what we think may be the answer :
A circle has an infinite number of sides.
(And now if we could just grasp at the word "infinite"! This will be explored more a bit later in school. ;) )
No comments:
Post a Comment