Getting the hang of this!

I am back again, twice in one month. I think I am finally getting the hang of this!

I am so excited to share with you some things that have been going on in my classroom this week as we finish up our review unit on all operations and start geometry!

I was really intimidated by the thought of teaching geometry and I must say, I am still not 100% sure that I truly know what I am talking about most of the time, but we will get there. I think I say "next year is going to be so much better" at least twice a day. Anyone else do this?

Anyway, I introduced geometry with a sort using Blair Turner's Quadrilateral Card Games. There is a set of quadrilateral cards that made this a breeze. I cannot wait to use the games in centers as review. I of course didn't snap a picture of the different ways my kids chose to sort these cards. From color, to size and a few smarties, by shape!

We then began talking about parallel lines and angles. First, we walked on the tiles staying on parallel lines and talked about how our feet will never meet as long as we stay on those lines. Someone made the connection to a train, PERFECT! This is where I introduced my Geometry Lapbook. I was thrilled to see that our discussion made parallel lines very easy for them to grasp. They were running all over the room trying to find every set of parallel lines. 

Then we went onto angles. I played this Angle Song and we talked about lines, endpoints, and when combined to make a polygon, they form angles. By the end of the period, they were singing along! I think next week, we will solidify our angle and parallel lines lesson with a little project involving toothpicks and marshmallows. 

Finally, we went into the different types of Quadrilaterals with our flapbook and re-sorted the cards from before into categories that matched our flapbook. 

We have ALOT of work to do before we master quadrilaterals BUT I imagine the games Blair created will help with that tremendously. Anyway, stay tuned for more Geometry fun next week as we begin to explore 3-D shapes!!