The little house

Introduction

In the game of the little house, children will express their intuition about proportions and will understand, compare and build geometric figures, developing the notion of parallel line and parallelograms from a compound figure that is very familiar to them. In fact, a different kind of puzzles is being used.

Preparation

“Draw” the shown house using triangles.

Procedure

  1. Say: Look what I built. What is it?
  2. Ask the child to describe the parts of the house. which is the roof? Which are the walls of the house?
  3. Ask questions on the proportion: which is bigger, the green wall or the blue one? How many times is the blue wall bigger than the green wall? Let the child guess it using intuition, later she can verify it.
  4. Challenge the child asking: ¿How you can verify it? It is expected that the children should put one piece onto the other. This skill will be very important in later challenges of Tetrakys. When this is understood, help by saying: Yes, the green wall is two times the blue wall.
  5. Later the child can play using parts of the house. For example the yellow roof can raise questions such as: Is it bigger or smaller than the blue wall? And the green wall?. The child initially will use her intuition.

Second level. The same little house using others figures

Se le presenta el reto al niño de manera que tenga que utilizar la sustitución de figuras. En primer lugar se le brindan apoyos de referencia con un espacio vacío.

Procedure

  1. Tell the child: Can you build the same little house but using other figures?
  2. Take the two blue triangles away and leave the empty space.
  3. Give the child two scalene triangles to make the substitution. To perform this task the children have to rotate the triangles.

Next, we present the same challenge to the children, but without spatial reference.

Tell the children to build again the roof, but using other figures.

Suggestions for teachers.

La comparación, composición y desconstrucción de figuras es un recurso didáctico para la comprensión de las figuras geométricas.

Figure compare, composition and deconstruction is a didactic resource for the comprehension of geometric figures. It is recommended that the identification of figures should imply processes under systematic questioning. For example, identification of the triangle and the square by compare using questions similar to the following: is the yellow figure equal to the green one? How many sides does it have? What is the name of the three-sided figure? Can you build a square using triangles? Now, build a bigger triangle.

Third level: a notion of parallel lines

  1. Ask the child to project parallel lanes saying: Look I drew a road to the little house, can you make it longer?
  2. Invite the child to think and test the notion saying: ¿Does this road get narrower when you make it longer? Test it.

For children in school age it can be a good idea for them to define the lines.