• Curriculum Overview
• Afternoons
• Events and Celebrations
• Service Learning and Partnerships
• Special Assemblies
• Mini Courses

by Anu Anand
Technology Teacher

It's GeoMAYnia in technology this month, providing another opportunity for meaningful collaboration and curriculum integration between the Special and Group teachers.

The Kindergarteners have been developing spatial awareness using combinations of pattern block shapes in Shapes (Math Investigations software). They are building knowledge about relationships between pattern block shapes and developing vocabularies to describe the attributes of 2-D shapes. The kindergarteners have also been dragging and dropping, moving and sizing objects using the tools in Shapes. The process of breaking apart and combining using the hammer and glue feature has resulted in interesting insights, e.g. a hexagon when broken apart results in two trapezoids. They are gaining confidence that they can navigate through a new software application with relative ease. The free explore and picture-building capabilities of Shapes have helped them reflect on their essential question, "Are all things made of shapes?"

Primary Circle's discovery with geometric shapes has extended beyond just learning attributes of 2-D shapes. The children have been uncovering concepts of parallel lines, symmetry, pattern, rotation and reflection using Shapes. These children have been visualizing the orientation, size and angle of shapes during the building process and becoming aware of the geometric motions of sliding, turning and flipping. The experimentations with the turn, rotate, flip and duplicate menu options have resulted in enduring understandings that changing the orientation doesn't affect the shape's names and attributes. They will be building Tangram puzzles on the computer to challenge each other in the coming weeks.

Main Circle is delving into angles, and co-ordinate geometry. Using Geo-Logo (a Logo programming based software tool), the children are not only exploring the basics of programming and logic but are learning how to use positive and negative coordinates to name and locate points on an X-Y coordinate plane. Using the metaphor of "teaching the turtle" how to move, turn or draw, in Geo-Logo, children create the commands to construct shapes keeping geometric properties in mind and specify motions on a grid. They are also engaged in deeper investigations of geometric figures with Tangrams and Pentaminoes and are uncovering concepts of area and perimeter using graphing and linear measurement tools.

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