BonnieJeanne's Personal Learning Path

Teaching volume to students is a grade 5 common core objective.  Grade 5 under the subgroup of Measurements and Data.  These are the standards that fill this topic in the common core language I am now beginning to understand: CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.MD.A.1 CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.MD.B.2 CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.MD.C.3 CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.MD.C.4 CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.MD.C.5 Volume begins in the 3rd standard: 5.MD.C.3 and this is the objective according to common core: Geometric measurement: understand concepts of volume. Recognize volume as an attribute of solid figures and understand concepts of volume measurement. There are two subtopics in this lesson as well: CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.MD.C.3.A A cube with side length 1 unit, called a "unit cube," is said to have "one cubic unit" of volume, and can be used to measure volume. CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.MD.C.3.B A solid figure which can be packed without gaps or overlaps using  n  unit cubes is said to h...

I had a hard time finding age appropriate information on 3d shapes online.  I found a lot of information for high school students and beyond, for computer science and things like that also. However, then I went back to education.com and found a few good lesson plans that were appropriate and first introduced the idea of 3D shapes and differing 2D and 3D shapes.  To me this seemed like something that would be difficult to grasp, but I think by 3rd grade students can understand. Basically the idea is really just to show the difference between 2D and 3D shapes by example.  Circle vs Sphere, cube vs square.  Once you have begun to explain and introduced all of the 3D shapes you would like to review, the teacher can begin to show these shapes in a 3D manner, with folded papers, with real life examples from the classroom, etc.   Following this, the class can get into counting the number of sides.  This is how you can really understand the difference...

Continuing on my PLP for geometry I wanted to grow from lines, rays and angles into 2D Shapes. Most students by elementary school can identify basic shapes: triangles, squares, circles, etc., but they don't understand why they are those shapes.  It is time to start understanding that the lines and angles make the shape who it is. The goal of the lesson plan will be clear: to define the attributes of each shape, in other words, what makes this shape different from other shapes, what makes this shape who it is? The idea in common core math is to understand why, not just memorize the shapes.  So we want to know that a triangle has 3 lines, and 3 angles. What is a vertex?  Frankly, I could not tell you, I could probably show it but wouldn't be sure! This is the definition: the place where two sides meet in a corner.   A triangle has 3 vertices.  A square has 4.  A circle has zero because it has zero straight lines and zero angles. A good worksheet ...

I wanted to start with geometry as it is something that I have certainly not kept up on in the past many many years!  When I started researching lesson plans and modules for elementary geometry I realized  that students have to start with just learning what a line is and after our reading and asynchronous work I also was curious how I would be able to make this more about reasoning and less about just memorizing and performing. I looked at a few lesson plans and realized that lines and rays and angles was where it all begins.  I had forgotten about that first step and thought it would be just about jumping into octagons and shapes but soon realized I was ahead of myself.  But how do you make lines interesting and engaging? I found a few lesson plans that looked like they would be fun to me.  The first was that the children all stand up and demonstrate everything with their hands and arms.  Example: Show me a line with your arms, show me a point with yo...