[gcompris-devel] Geometry activities propositions

[Bruno Coudoin]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for sharing you thoughts on it, see my comments bellow.

Le 21/09/2014 00:42, Emmanuel Charruau a écrit :
> Hi everybody,
>
> I am a french teacher and following a discussion on irc Bruno asked me if I
> could describe some geometry applications which could be useful.
> Last year I had two classes, CE1 and CE2 which goes from 7 to 9 years old.
> I then thought about the following applications that I would have liked for
> my pupils:
>
> 1- Aligned points
> One ruler with two areas, the left area of the ruler is used to move it and
> the right is used to rotate it.
Ok, we have to see how to best represent the actions. On a tablet you 
could use a drag for move and a gesture for rotation.
> Several points aligned or not aligned.
> The ruler can help children to decide if the points are aligned or not.
> Two buttons, "aligned" and "not aligned" to give the answer.
Said like this we can think about it as a quizz with a ruler.  As we 
have a ruler, won't it be interesting to ask the distance between two 
points.
>
> 2- Polygon or not polygon
> Here a very basic application with two buttons and the presentation of
> several figures. The pupil must press the buttons "Polygon" or "not
> polygon".
Like you did mention on IRC, this could be easily accomplished with a 
simple quiz like we have for our 'left right' activity.

We already discussed and agreed on the value of letting a teacher create 
quizz and assigning them through 'schoolbus'. The activity you describe 
is fine to check the children knowledge after your teaching. What about 
home users?. I don't see a value of providing quizz to children without 
providing some basic concept presentation upfront.

So either we say this will be covered by a generic quizz activity and we 
leave it to the teacher or we create a more complete activity that 
introduces the concept before going to the quizz.

>
> 3- Square rectangle circle or triangle
> Here the same very basic application to decide between rectangle square
> circle other "other polygone".
> It can seem easy, it is not. As soon as the figure is not in prototypical
> position (for exampe that a square has no side placed horizontally) pupils
> have lots of problems to recognise it.
Ok, and do we provide the ruler and the square so that the children can 
experiment and find the solution?
> 4- Right angle or no right angle
> On the model of the first activity "Aligned points" we would have several
> angles presented and a "set square". Again two areas there on the "set
> square", one to move and one to rotate the tool.
> Several angles are presented and pupils are invited to tell if they see a
> right angle or not.
Ok, got it. Same as point 1 with a square.
>
> 5- Reproduce a figure - create symétry with tiles
> There is already in GCompris an activity which deals with reproduction and
> symétry.
> I used it with my pupils and it was a bit too complicated for them because
> of the mouse handling and the different options to draw.
> It would be great to have the same activity but much simpler. When a kid
> touches a tile of the grid it changes color or it goes back white.
> Same for the symétrie.
No comment, I like it. Let's port the symmetry activity with this in 
mind. TBD, update the wiki port page.
>
> 6- Reproduce a figure - create symétry with lines
> About the same activity but which asks to reproduce figures made with
> lines. A bit more difficult on the drawing handling.
Ok. And no circles or ellipses?
>
> 7- Volumes
> Recognise different volumes
>
> That's all I can think about at the moment, I will post some more when I
> think about more activities.
>
Don't you appreciate an activity where the children is instructed to 
draw a figure given a set of instructions like 'create a point A on 
3,2', 'create a point B on 5,6', 'draw a line from point A and point B'.

Bruno.