Seventh class

Hello everyone!

📽️ In today's post we will comment on the last part of the video: Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land. This part would be between the minutes 22:09 - until the end of the video. As we already talked in his respective post, in this part of the video the narrator will explain through Donald that to understand mathematics we have to have an open mind and have a positive attitude towards them as we talked about in the previous post. The narrator does this, so that now Donald, with flat figures, finds objects of our everyday life that form figures with volumes. In order to finish the video and this fragment, the narrator tells us that there are still many unknowns about mathematics, which at the end of the video represents doors that can not be opened.


In this fragment of the video we find the following content related to the theme of geometry: flat geometric figures, solid of revolution and volumes. In this class, we will work with the volumes, since in previous posts we have worked with the different flat figures and although we can take advantage of them to review them, we will introduce the contents related to the subject of the volumes.

Before starting with the activities we can see this web page to make a brief review of the contents that we will see next in the following activities, which as we have already said, will work all the content of volumes. In order to review the solid of revolution here is a web page that can help you to understand it.


📝 ACTIVITY: for this first activity we will review the contents of flat figures and we will finish by introducing the contents of volumes. In order to do all this in a different and fun way we will use food to create our geometric figures. In this web page you can find how prisms and flat figures are created in different ways that students can finish "eating" in class.

🕹️ GAME: in the following websites (1, 2, 3) you can find different games that can be used in class to review the contents of the volumes. This type of resource, students can repeat at home as often as they wish, in addition to the use of technologies and gamification help to create a motivation in the student to use the game and learn new knowledge.

⚗️ EXPERIMENT: for the following experiment, once the volumes are explained, we can ask the students if they think the volume of a cone is one third of the volume of a cylinder, and so we will introduce this experiment, where the students will create their own figures, and as it is shown in the video, they will verify that this statement is indeed true. This type of experiment could be carried out with different geometrical figures to compare the volumes between them.

I hope you stay and help us in this exciting trip through Mathmagic Land!

Marta 

Sixth class

Hello everyone!

📽️ In today's post we will comment on the fourth part of the video: Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land. This part would be between the minutes 13:46 - 22:09. As we already talked in his respective post, in this part of the video Donald will discover that mathematics is not only addition and subtraction, we can also find mathematics in games. In this part of the video a literary author is quoted: Lewis Carroll, who wrote the book "Through the Looking Glass". As we can see, it is very easy to work different transversal contents from the visualization of this video, making the students curious about what the book is about and how it relates to mathematics, so we also encourage reading.


In this fragment of the video we find the following content related to the theme of geometry: chess, sports, geometric figures and angles. Returning to the above, we can unite these contents that we find in this passage with the subject of physical education, since it is about sports.

Before moving on to the activities, it would be convenient for us to read the multiple benefits that playing chess has in elementary classes. In the following pages you can find this information (1, 2, 3).


📝 ACTIVITY 1: for the first activity we will work with a chess board and we will ask the students "the horse problem". In this "problem" students have to move the horse by the chessboard and touch all the boxes without repeating any. Thus we could introduce the terms of translation, symmetry, movements of figures in a plane... This activity allows to develop many skills in students, in addition to the transversal contents that can be worked within it. Solution and explanation.

📝 ACTIVITY 2: for the next activity we will work on the contents of the area, perimeter, prisms... For this we will use all the play fields that the students know and we will make problems to calculate the aforementioned contents. With the game balls of the same we will do the same, as explained on this web page we can see how the soccer ball is full of geometry.

📝 ACTIVITY 3: in this activity we will work with the hopscotch which offers us endless possibilities, since it allows us to carry out a large number of activities while reviewing or learning new contents such as fractions, multiplications, plane figures, areas, perimeters... As in the previous examples you can adapt the hopscotch and write inside the squares of it what we want the students to answer, for example, geometric figures can be drawn and the students have to say the area and volume of the figure.

I hope you stay and help us in this exciting trip through Mathmagic Land!

Marta 

Fifth class

Hello everyone!

📽️ In today's post we will comment on the third part of the video: Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land. This part would be between the minutes 7:17 - 13:46. As we already talked about in its respective post, in this part of the video Donald will discover how the golden ratio comes out of the Pythagorean pentagon, which is found in many representations of our day to day life, as well as in different places such as sculptures, buildings, paintings, dancing and in nature. This part ends with the concept of symmetry since with the pentagon most of the figures that come out, as we can see in nature, come out symmetrical figures such as snowflakes.


In this fragment of the video we find the following content related to the theme of geometry: plane figures, area and perimeter, geometric bodies, golden ratio and the pentagon in nature. Therefore, we have a lot of content to discuss in the class, but before, it would be convenient to make a brief review of the contents that we are going to teach our students in class. In the following web page you will find most of the information that we will use in the following activities and experiments.

Once this knowledge is remembered, let's move on to the activities that we will carry out with the students in class. Following the theme of magic that we discussed in the previous class and that is referenced in the video, we will use the flat figures painted in different colors to create an optical illusion that gives the feeling of having a volume in a flat space.


📝 ACTIVITY 1: as we have said before, in the first activity we will create optical illusions from flat figures and patterns. In the following web page you will find the procedure to follow to create these optical illusions, which we will create with a hexagon divided into 3 parallelograms.

📝 ACTIVITY 2: for the next activity we will go back to the previous class and we will use the transversal content of the music. In the previous activity we have already introduced the concept of symmetry and now we are going to apply it in practice, for which we are going to rely on music. For this we will use the flutes that the students have in class and we will interpret "Duetto del espejo" a song that can be interpreted from both sides as we can see in the image. After this, the students could try to create a similar song that can be read from both perspectives.

📝 ACTIVITY 3: for the next activity we will introduce the golden ratio concept and work with it. To do this, we will create said aureus rectangle with the students as we can see in the image, and we will measure different objects of the class so that the students realize that the golden ratio can be found in most places of nature and our day to day as the narrator explains in the video.

⚗️ EXPERIMENT 1: in this first experiment we will continue working the symmetry and we will create a kaleidoscope. In the following web pages (1, 2, 3, 4) you can find the procedure to follow to create one in class, the materials are very easy to obtain and the creation process will motivate the students. With this experiment we work many of the contents related to geometry since students must form a kaleidoscope based on plane figures and mirrors.

⚗️ EXPERIMENT 2: the following experiment, however simple it may seem, contains most of the contents that we are working on in the different classes (areas, perimeter, geometrical bodies, symmetry...). It's about creating soap bubbles of different shapes and sizes, as well as playing with them to see the geometry they contain. In the following web pages you will be able to experiment with bubbles to carry out in class (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) all of them with an explanation of the procedure and the materials necessary to create them.

I hope you stay and help us in this exciting trip through Mathmagic Land!

Marta 

📖 GLOSSARY: kaleidoscope is an optical instrument consisting of a tube with two or three inclined mirrors and colored crystals inside, arranged in such a way that if you move the tube and look inside at one end, you can see different symmetrical geometric figures.

Fourth class

Hello everyone!

📽️ In today's post we will comment on the second part of the video: Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land. This part would be between 2:50 - 7:17. As we already talked in his respective post, in this part of the video Donald is taken to ancient Greece, where he will meet the father of mathematics and music, Pythagoras. But before that, our friend the narrator will explain how Pythagoras with the help of mathematics, specifically fractions, created the musical scale that we know today.


In this fragment of the video we find the following content related to the theme of geometry: music, pentagrams and Pythagoras. In addition, there is a content that will help us to introduce today's class: the Pythagoreans and the secret emblem, which in the case of video is the pentagram (a 5-pointed star). Since the previous classes, we have been creating a climate of motivation for mathematics, now the motivation will come hand in hand with the fact that we will ask students to create a community like the Pythagoreans to share the knowledge we have about what we learn in class.

At this point, the students already have some basic notions or at least have an idea that is the subject of geometry and that is related to it, since in the first part of the video they had to write down those things they saw in the video related to geometry. Thus, for the first activity of this class we will use those first notions that they pointed or drew in the previous class.


Before entering fully into the activities we will do with the students, we can enter this web page where they explain how the musical scale is created. Although this page could not be used in class with the students, it is good that the teachers have an idea of ​​what the class is explaining. Therefore, some basic notions of what is going to be seen in class does not hurt to review them.


📝 ACTIVITY 1: for this activity we will ask the students to create "an emblem" for the class, as well as to think of a name like "the Pythagoreans". This activity is very useful not only to encourage debate, fellowship and work the assembly in class, since everyone must agree, but they are reviewing mathematics content, and especially the flat figures, because with these same They have to create an emblem for the class that represents them.


⚗️ EXPERIMENT 1: for the next experiment we will use content related to music. For them we will create a monochord in class so that students can see how Pythagoras created the musical scale. In the following link, in the pages from 4 to 6, there is the explanation, the procedure to build the monochord, as well as the materials and an explanation of the experience with it.

⚗️ EXPERIMENT 2: in this second experiment we will carry out the "acoustic geometry". In this video they explain step by step how to create this experiment, that we can work in class, less the part that requires the use of professional tools that can be done by the teacher outside the classroom. With this experiment we will see how geometric figures are formed from frequencies that we create with the mobile in an application.

I hope you stay and help us in this exciting trip through Mathmagic Land!

Marta 

📖 GLOSSARY: ​​monochord is a string musical instrument similar to the zither but with a single string and with the rectangular sounding board.

Third class

Hello everyone!

📽️ In today's post, we will comment on the first part of the video: Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land. This first part would be between the minutes 0:50 - 2:50. As we talked about in the previous post, in this part of the video we find Donald entering in Mathmagic Land, where he is found numbers, square roots, the PI number, flat figures... and the narrator, who is going to be in charge of show us this wonderful land.

As we said in the previous post, although we found enough content related to the topic we want to work on, as an introduction is being made to the topic, in class we will do the same with the students, thus making an introduction to Geometry. Therefore, the type of game or activities that we do for this part must be motivating for the students and that they transmit curiosity to know the contents that will come next in the subject.

Since Donald arrives at Mathmagic Land, we will tell the students that we will also enter this Magic Land doing activities with a "magic touch". In this class we will do 2 activities to introduce the geometry to the students, one related to the video and the other related to Art. In addition, we will do a "magical" experiment to finish the class, with which the students will be fascinated and motivated for later classes.

📝 ACTIVITY 1: this activity will be carried out right after finishing watching the first part of the video. We will ask the students draw or write on a sheet the contents that they have seen in this first part and, therefore, they have transmitted curiosity to them. Thus, we are making students think about what they have seen, what they understand, what they do not understand...

📝 ACTIVITY 2: "La Alhambra de Granada es la fuente de inspiración más fértil de todas las que he bebido" M. C. Escher. We will introduce students to the world of this artist by showing them different artistic works and commenting with them what they can see related to geometry.

With this type of "magical" artistic works we will make the students think about what is happening in the artistic work and what contents related to the geometry that they have just seen in the video, can be found in the artistic works.

⚗️ EXPERIMENT: in the following experiment that we will call "Magical Phenomena" students will be fascinated with the magic that we can find in our daily life, as well as geometry is anywhere, even in food. On this page we find the procedure of the experiment, as well as an explanatory video and the explanation of it.

I hope you stay and help us in this exciting trip through Mathmagic Land!

Marta 

Second class

Hello everyone!

In today's post, we will comment on the video: Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land (spanish version). We would use this video as a motivating element at the beginning of the course, as we explained in the previous post.

First, before viewing the video in class with the students, we must know what kind of contents appear in the video, how they relate to the contents that are established in the primary curriculum and what activities we can do with the students to deal with all of this that appears in the video.

Therefore, in this post we will comment on the video in general, all the aspects that appear in it and the contents of primary that we can work with. In later posts, we will comment part by part on the video, specifying the games and activities that we can use in the class.

👉🏻 In the first part of the video we can see how Donald enters in Mathmagic Land. It is here where numbers begin to appear, square roots, the PI number, which transforms into a bird when several flat figures join, and where the narrator is found. Initially, Donald believes that "mathematics are for nerds", this refers to when in the previous post we talked about the fact that most students "hate" mathematics. Therefore, this video and the narrator will show us that we are wrong, and that mathematics is something surprising.

As you can see, this video will help us change the perception of students with mathematics. On the other hand, perhaps in this part of the video we cannot use the contents that, in the LOMCE, refer to geometry, so we could do an initiation to it.

👉🏻 The second content appears in the video is music, Pythagoras and the pentagram. As we can see, we are not only giving geometry or mathematics, with this video we also work with transversal contents such as Music or History.

In this part of the video we will try to make students see how geometry is in music and vice versa. From my point of view, music is a good stimulant for students, since it has many benefits which we will discuss in the post related to this section.

👉🏻 The third content we will deal with is related to art and geometry, where we can introduce a large amount of content that appears in the law in this part as the flat figures, the area and perimeter of the same, geometric bodies...

Again, we can establish transversal contents with subjects such as History and Art. In addition, in this fragment of the video is showed the golden ratio and, also, is showed where we can find the pentagon in nature, contents that do not appear in the curriculum but are interesting for research and debate in class.

👉🏻 The fourth content that is included in the video is related to games, no matter if they are board games or any sport. This will be one of the sections that students like the most since it will be done through gamification. In this part of the video he explains how to play French billiards, which will be the perfect excuse to explain the angles.

👉🏻 In the last part of the video we can see how from a triangle and a circle creates different volumes and everyday objects of our day to day. Therefore, this section will be dedicated to that part of the curriculum.

As you can see, from a simple video, which we will use to motivate the students at the beginning of the course, we have obtained enough information to work with the students during the course. The activities, games or experiments that we will expose in the next posts could be used as "mini-projects" within the subject of Mathematics, more specifically in the area of ​​Geometry, making the classes a little more dynamic and entertaining for the students.

I hope you stay and help us in this exciting trip through Mathmagic Land!

Marta 

First class

 

Hello everyone!

Everything has a beginning. And when we speak of primary school students, this begining must be full of motivation and enthusiasm. It is well known that most students, regardless of the course they are, "hate" everything related to the subject of Mathematics. But what these students do not know is that mathematics is in our day to day, and without they know it, they "love" Mathematics.

Therefore, in this post I would like to talk about how we can motivate the students at the beginning of the course so that they have a positive predisposition towards the subject of Mathematics, especially Geometry.

As adults/teachers, we find the motivation to learn something when we find concepts that we do not know and therefore they arouse curiosity. Once this curiosity has reached us, we make available all possible means to find an answer to the question raised.

Therefore, motivation linked to curiosity leads to learning something new. The same thing happens in elementary school students, although unlike adults, they may not yet have the capacity to find the resources or tools necessary to answer the questions they are asked.

It is at this point that the teacher has to intervene and, on the one hand, make available to the students resources that motivate them and arouse curiosity to know what is presented to them, and, on the other hand, to give the necessary tools so that they themselves or with the teacher's help solve the initial doubts.

Thus, any kind of geometry class has to start with a motivating element in which is what we want to teach the students and, therefore, lead to the curiosity of it.

First of all, we should look for those foci that motivate the students of today, which are quite obvious. If the students are smaller, we must use a lot of audiovisual content to attract their attention, on the contrary, with the older students we can introduce the management of new technologies.

In both cases, the visual elements are very important. That's why, I think that starting with a video is a great idea so students are motivated and arouse curiosity about the knowledge that we will later see in class.

The video that would be used for this would be a classic: Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land  (spanish version). This video allows us to introduce a large amount of content that we can work on throughout the course and what we are going to do in this blog.

In each entry we will comment on a part of the video, as well as the contents that we can work on the fragment, games and experiments that can be carried out in class.

I hope you enjoy this trip through Mathmagic Land!

Marta 

Presentation

Welcome to this blog!

First of all, I would like to introduce myself, I am Marta López Martínez, a student of 3rd year of Bilingual Primary Education at the University of Málaga.

This blog, linked to the subject of Didactics of Geometry, will serve me to comment on the most interesting concepts that I find related to geometry.

I would also like to include activities that students can take in the math class related to geometry, resources, experiments, as well as a glossary at the end of each entry with the words more interesting that are in each post.

I hope you enjoy it!

Marta