Here are some quick links to a couple of online activities we are using in class on Tuesday, February 5th.

Geometric Solids - http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=70

Isometric Drawing Tool - http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=125

In math, 7th graders have gotten a good start into the Geometry topics.  We have recentley covered Polygons, Types of Triangles, Special Quadrilaterals, and Polygon Naming.  We took a quiz over these topics on Friday, February 25th.  The last couple of days, we have been working with Tangram puzzles.  Tangrams consist of seven puzzle pieces: 2 large right triangles, 1 medium right triangle, 2 small right triangles, 1 parallelogram, and 1 square.  The pieces can be made into a large square or two congruent smaller squares.  They can also be placed to form shapes that resemble things... like a cat for example.

Students were given packets with the outlines of various objects.  The goal is to get a full set (or two) of Tangram pieces to fit within the outline of the shape.  Students then sketched the outline of their solution onto a smaller version of the puzzle to show how they solved it.  This activity deals with areas, perimeters, and spatial sense.  Some students really seemed to excel at the activity while others really struggled.

Starting on Wednesday, January 30th, we will be getting into 3-dimensional figures such as prisms, pyramids, cylinders, cones, and spheres.  We will investigate their nets (2-dimensional flattened versions that can be folded up into the 3-D shape) and figure out trends to the geometric shapes used.  We will also investigate the cross-sections of various 3-dimensional objects.