Fun Geometry
My response to a friend's request for geometry resources for her 7 year old:
I am not a big Geometry person -- I got a C in geometry for the year,
probably one of the lowest grades I ever got -- because I hated doing
proofs. But, as a Visual-Spatial person, I do love the shapes and stuff.
Too bad the schools take such a dry approach to the topic. Geometry can be
such fun. It is useful in architecture, interior design, and so on. You
use it anytime you try to plan a room layout with graph paper and cut-out
shapes to represent the furniture. Same thing with garden design. You can
buy sets to do stuff like that with peel off pieces that can be re-used over
and over. I have a kitchen planning book that used to disappear all the
time into my youngest son's bedroom.
History of architecture might be a cool approach too. Simple architecture,
like you find at Stonehenge, was severely limited by physics. Learning to
create arches -- and the importance of the keystone at the top that held the
whole thing together -- was a radical leap forward. We have such dry, dull
'architecture' in most buildings today. But all those beautiful old
buildings in Europe have fabulous shapes -- barrel vaults, and all kinds of
other vaults that I cannot remember the name of right now.
We had a geometry program called "Geometry Blaster". I hated doing proofs
in geometry but I liked this program. It dealt more with shapes and stuff
than proofs. It has been a while since my kids used it, so I cannot give you
a better description. But, here is a description on the web: Geometry Blaster
It has aspects that a young child could 'play' with, such as Tangrams. (This is out of
print, you might be able to get it second hand.)
You can also explore Tangrams, which are just plain fun. Look this over: Tangrams Or, do a search in google for 'tangrams'.
K'nex has educational stuff. Just check the website: k'nex
We bought the math set. I think we bought the 'Primer math educator pack' because we already had a bunch of K'nex and it
was cheaper. It has a fair amount of basic geometry in it because that is such a natural fit for K'nex.
I don't know if this will be helpful, but you could visit: Mathman Patterns
This is a link I got off a homeschooling list: Mathcats
I haven't explored it, but it looks kid-friendly and geometry-oriented.
And how about Origami: Paperfolding Math You can buy an origami 'kit' in a book store. We bought
one years ago. My kids got a real kick out of it.
I hope that gets you started.
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Free Curriculum on the Web
The Math Files
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