Isn’t this image beautiful? I was taken aback by the amazing shapes and designs possible from a few triangles. This material is from an early childhood Montessori classroom.
Yup, kids can begin to learn geometry at preschool age. The great thing, too, is that the learning is fun, without pressure, and captivates children (and adults). Montessori for Everyone has a FREE triangle stars printable for you to download, print and laminate. This print out is a great tool for working with triangles. The print out is a good guide for you.
The images above are the Pinwheel Box, a small rectangular box that contains 12 blue scalene right triangles. It is part of Montessori Sensorial curriculum under Visual. Here is one way to approach using all twelve triangles:
- Say to the child: “Let’s make a star by putting all the small angles together.”
- When the star is complete, point out that it is made of 12 triangles & has 12 points.
You don’t have to use all twelve triangles to do this exercise. Here are examples using six and four triangles.
- Say to the child: “Let’s make a star by putting all the medium angles together.”
- When the star is complete, point out that only ½ (6) triangles were used to make the star and the star has 6 points.
- Say to the child: “Let’s make a star by putting all the large angles together.”
- When the star is complete, point out that only 4 triangles were used to make the star and the star has 4 points.
Here are some fun images of creating a diaphragm in the center of the above shapes:
Trust me when I tell you your children will enjoy working with these triangles. They won’t know it yet but this activity will help them “get” geometry when they reach it in school. Amazing stuff. Please leave a comment, I love hearing from you!
Thank you for reading!
Marnie
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