3D shapes have been around forever, will we ever understand them?

When it comes to 3D shapes, they are everywhere, but understanding them in the classroom can be difficult. That's why we used a guiding learning activity in order to complete our task. The activity simply helped us solve the bigger picture by taking us through the problem step by step and explaining the to find the little things and put it together to find a bigger answer. The learning activity used physical manipulatives like string to measure the circumference of a circle and a toilet paper roll to represent a cylinder. We first used the cylinder and dipped the ends in ink and created our circle on the paper. We used the string to find the circumference of the circle as well find the area. Then we cut the cylinder in half from end to end, creating a rectangle. Then we used the rectangles sides to finds it area. Boom you have the surface area. The problem continues getting more and more complex as the steps continue. As a pre-service teacher this activity can be a great tool when working with students. An activity like this can be used in a variety of classrooms, not just for math and the step by step thinking is a great strategy for students to grasp. Sometimes rushing to the answer is not the best idea, I would know.

The technique of physical manipulatives has been used in my placement class often. Just this week my associate teacher was using the string technique to show that circumference was simply a length and its relevance to pi. When a circles diameter is 1, its circumference is pi. This can be easily represented with the string, especially for those learners who are curious to know what the significance of 3.14... or pi is. The students had a better understand of the concepts of pi and circumference and its significance.

Another Cool Way to measure Circumference

The video above shows another cool way to measure circumference when you don't have string available. I found this way a lot easier in my opinion.

Finally I wanted to talked about distinguishing 2D and 3D shapes and why its important to use a physical manipulative or technological tool to represent the shapes. When a shape is just on a paper its often hard to distinguish, especially at the younger grades. I mean how do you represent the difference between a sphere and a circle on paper. They look almost the same. Having the physical manipulatives like having a sphere such as tennis ball or baseball versus a circle like a plate can really show the difference in shapes. This goes for all the shapes including a triangle and pyramid, it makes it easy for your learners to grasp the concepts of dimensions.