For today's lesson, I felt pretty prepared. As I researched and prepared ideas of how we can further integrate technology and art into the classroom in conjunction with the geometric shapes from last week, I came across the idea of using virtual tangrams! A tangram is a set of seven shapes—two large right triangles, two small right triangles, one medium right triangle, one parallelogram, and one diamond/square—that can be used to make a variety of geometric forms.
I remembered using tangrams in my own elementary school to understand geometry better, and I thought it would be a good way for the students to gain greater dexterity with both technology and shapes. I planned on having the kids make their own set of digital tangrams that they could use to explore with.
While it was a good idea, and Mrs. Stone had a printout of some possible configurations and ideas for the students, I recognized that the idea behind tangrams was kind of lost on the students. Many of them got so excited by being able to make some of these shapes that they ended up making interesting shapes and forms but without using all of the tangram pieces!
Here are a few of what the students made when trying to use the tangrams:
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| Half Horse Half Pony Half Duck - by Bruno |
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| Snake - by Keith |
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| Alligator - by Joseph |
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| Dog - by Lucy |
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| Angel in Space - by Eva |
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| Burger - by Adam |
One question I have is: How do you balance outside the lines thinking where creativity is evident and the fundamental, integrated basis of the lesson? I think the students came up with unique designs and were exploring the medium they were using, but this lesson came up short in terms of the math integration I was trying to accomplish.
Was I trying to do too much in having the class make the tangram shapes? Or were my instructions not clear enough? Was the lesson a success because they experimented with the medium and created or was it more of a failed lesson?
After class, I walked with Mrs. Stone as the class went to lunch. We talked about the next logical progression in the lesson sequence, and we decided to continue with the tangram exploration next week.
First of all, that hamburger is awesome! As far as the tangrams goes, I wouldn't give up on teaching that concept. I wonder if its something they need to physically experience through hand-cutout shapes. Once they seem to grasp that concept on that level and create a design out of those shapes, then they can translate their physical designs to a digital ones.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, that hamburger is awesome! As far as the tangrams goes, I wouldn't give up on teaching that concept. I wonder if its something they need to physically experience through hand-cutout shapes. Once they seem to grasp that concept on that level and create a design out of those shapes, then they can translate their physical designs to a digital ones.
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