April 28th, 2016
I'm currently doing Service Learning in my old fifth grader
teacher, Mrs. Nowicki's, classroom. Right now in math, the class is discussing
three-dimensional shapes and their names. On Friday the 22nd, Mrs. Nowicki
began math and asked the class to point out and name 3D objects in the
classroom. One student pointed out a bin holding filing folders and said it was
a rectangular prism. Another student pointed out a stack of sno-cones in the
back of the classroom used for science experiments and said it was a cone. One
final student pointed out the clock on the wall and said it was a cylinder,
which another student immediately disagreed with. A discussion began among all
the students. Mrs. Nowicki asked the second student why she didn't think the
clock was a cylinder. The student replied, "It's not tall enough to be a
cylinder." Mrs. Nowicki then said, "If you took the face of the clock
off and all of the gears out of it, it would be empty on the inside. Couldn't
you then fill it with something else like water?" The student replied that
someone could do that and said "I guess the clock is three-dimensional
because you could fill it with something, so it must be a cylinder." The
students then discussed as a class the different types of three-dimensional
objects identified in the room and and why they could be classified as a
certain object.
I really liked the way Mrs. Nowicki handled this situation.
I thought it was interesting how she helped this student understand
three-dimensional objects by asking if she could fill the clock with something
if it were empty. It was a nice early introduction to volume, one that I think
will help her students understand the concept of volume very well. I also
really liked how Mrs. Nowicki asked her students to determine 3D shapes in
their classroom. The shapes that they found will be examples that they can
remember when they are struggling with a certain object. For example, the
student who struggled to understand that the clock was a cylinder will remember
what a cylinder looks like because the time was taken to explain why the clock
is in fact a cylinder.
This video is useful for coming up with every day examples
of three-dimensional shapes and helping students remember the names of several
of the most common 3D shapes. The original source of the video can be found here.
