SeeSaw app in action
my shape has 4 right angles. 4 sides, 2 lines of symmetry and 4 vertices
SeeSaw App
This app is like a live bulletin board where students can display their work for others to see. Peers can make comments (give descriptive feedback) about the work to further learning.
After adding the app from the ChromeStore to our individual Chromebooks, students were challenged to 1. take a photo of a quadrilateral in the classroom. This proved not so challenging as we only had squares (Starburst candies) and rectangles (tables, books, charts). Not even a trapezoid table! But we persevered...
Next, and after uploading the picture to SeeSaw from their camera roll, the Ss were encouraged to use the 2. drawing tool to show attributes. These "smarties" didn't care that they had never used this app before and began colour coding their math thinking (which made it easier for anyone seeing their work to distinguish ideas).
With pictures in, I forced the Ss to try putting their thinking into words...to explain what they had drawn on their pictures. They had the option of 3. captioning the picture or recording their explanation with the 4.audio tool.
The magic happens in the comments! The Ss needed to apply what they knew about quadrilaterals and suggest ways their peers could improve upon their work. Here are the comments Marie Claire received for her work (in the above photo):
Gloria Julius I like that you put the lines of symmetry. Maybe next time you could add dots on the vertices so it's more clear.
Dylan Gilliam I like how you showed the lines of symmetry
Jesse Hamilton I love how you showed parallel lines, vertices and the angles. What if you could show more about your shape? What would you do? Roberta Brooks Marie Claire, I appreciated how you colour coded the work which made it really easy to read. I think I would like it if everyone did that!
I ❣ this app!
Grandpa Tang's Story
by Ann Tompert
Grandfather Tang and Little Soo create a story using their tangrams about two fox fairies who have the ability to change into the shapes of any animals they choose. Includes informational section about the ancient Chinese puzzles called tangrams.
After reading the story aloud to the Ss, I projected the animals that were created in the story and challenged them to use their own set of tangrams to re-create as many of the animals as they were able in 10 minutes. Can you guess these animals that appear in the story?
Manipulating the tangrams was a bit of a challenge at first. Ss are so used to seeing shapes in an upright position; rotating and flipping the shapes to create the animals was not their first instinct.
I then projected another challenge where Ss were to try and create a shape using a set number of pieces. Each tangram piece was given a point value to help them to narrow down their choices. This may have led to some confusion but the Ss who love numbers were certainly aided with this bit.
An example of one of the challenges was to create a square using 2 pieces that were worth 10 points.
The Ss who like numbers looked for combinations that made a total of 10 and saw it was the yellow and green pieces, the red and light blue pieces, or the orange and pink pieces. By manipulating the two pieces together, they could quickly decide that the 2 large triangles would form a square. Some Ss knew the answer had to have two congruent shapes or a square was impossible. This particular example will come into play when we discuss area of rectangles vs area of triangles. If Ss remember that 2 triangles make a square (which is a type of rectangle) AND they already know that the area of a rectangle is l x w, wouldn't the area of a triangle be half of that (since half of a square is a triangle)?
Let us know in the comments how you get students in shape for geometry!
~MissBrooks
No comments:
Post a Comment