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Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Time for GeoBoards and Rubber Bands

Today in class we got to use GeoBoards. I really enjoyed using this. They are so much fun if you know how to use it.  So before our teacher gave us the GeoBoards she told us what we are supposed to do with it. As if we were the children in the classroom. Usually after you give it to children they see rubber bands and start shooting them up and go crazy. She said if we say it before handing it out the GeoBoards the students will use it the correct way and nothing crazy will happen. This was very helpful to know. This is what a GeoBoard looks like and a fun way to use it.


After we had the GeoBoards we got 2 worksheets. One worksheet was just filled with shapes like the one you see here but just with one shape on each GeoBoard. The first thing we were supposed to do is find the perimeter units and the area units. You must be wondering how we did that. To find the perimeter units you usually count the number of dots that is on the rubber bands. To find the area units square you usually count the number of squares inside the figure.To find interior we usually find the number that is the inside that is empty and without rubber bands.Then we had to make 3 of our own figures on our Geoboards and write our perimeter, interior and area on the white board.



The second worksheet we got was about discovering Pick’s Theorem. This worksheet there was a fish which we used and we make it on our GeoBoard. Then we had a couple questions based on finally perimeter pins, interior pins, and area pins. The perimeter and area pins are the same we did in the other worksheet.   Can you see we have 2 interior pins on this figure? On the fish below there are only 2 of the dots are not with rubber bands.


I also found few links according to what grade level you are interested in. One is based on GeoBoards click here!!  The other one is also on measurements based on area. Click on this link for more information.


3 comments:

  1. I enjoyed this activity. I found it very interesting since I was not familiar with Pick's theorem beforehand. I like how you mentioned the importance classroom management when doing this activity. I could see how this could get out of hand if clear rules are not established right off the bat.

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  2. The activity was a lot of fun in class. When I was younger, I used to sit in my sisters classroom and play with her geoboards. As i was growing up, Math was my favorite subject to do. I learned about Pick's Theorem when i was in the 6th grade, but i forgot it. It was nice to learn it again.

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  3. Daniel- I totally agree it was fun!! Also, without clear rules everything can get out of control!! I

    Roberta- I know right!! I liked geoboards a lot too.

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