Friday Afternoon Lifesavers are exactly what they sound like: at the end of the week when you and your students are running out of gas, these activities come to the rescue. They are mathematical, engaging, fun, and give the teacher a much-needed break.
One way to help kids become better problem solvers is to pose spatial visualization puzzles like this one. Students are given non-standard shapes and asked to divide them into two congruent parts. Kids love the challenge of finding how to create two identical shapes; this activity engages all students and gives the teacher the opportunity to circulate the room and give encouragement and advice as needed without student management issues.
This activity provides the teacher the option to teach/reinforce the concepts of congruence, line symmetry, and rotational symmetry. Also available here are area, distance, and perimeter teaching opportunities.
After students solve as many shape puzzles as they can, the teacher has the chance to take them to the next level. Hand out some blank grid paper and encourage them to create their own Twins. By asking them to design these types of puzzles, students can appreciate the skill it takes to create a good puzzle by turning two congruent shapes into a larger shape and “disguising the line of separation.”
The downloadable pdf file includes the Student Puzzle Page, a Solution Page, and a blank grid page. Another dissection puzzle can be found at Friday Afternoon Lifesavers, Part 8, Triples.
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Friday Afternoon Lifesavers are
exactly what teachers need!
Simple,short And Useful.
(specially pdf files)
i’m waiting for next week .
[...] Lombard at Mr. L’s Math offers a couple more of his Friday Afternoon Lifesavers: Twins and Triples, Exploring Congruence and [...]