Definition - What is Shape in Early Geometry?
Shape is one of teaching content in AusVELS, it mainly focus on 2-dimentional shapes and 3-dimentional objects and starts from Foundation level to Level 10; but we merely focus on the early shape learning , which from Foundation Level to Level 2.
There are specific description and requirement about shape in AusVELS. At foundation level, children begin to familiar with shapes and objects around them, learn to describe and sort regular shapes and objects. And then they attend to recognise and classify 2-dimentional shapes and 3-dimentional objects by analysis properties at Level 1; and be encouraged to describe and draw different shapes and objects at Level 2.
There are specific description and requirement about shape in AusVELS. At foundation level, children begin to familiar with shapes and objects around them, learn to describe and sort regular shapes and objects. And then they attend to recognise and classify 2-dimentional shapes and 3-dimentional objects by analysis properties at Level 1; and be encouraged to describe and draw different shapes and objects at Level 2.
Why it is important in early mathematics?
Firstly, the world that we live filled with shapes. The ppt. that shown on the left presents various pictures of shapes, it shows coins are circles, flags are rectangle, plates are square. Children can experience, appreciate and enjoy the world by learning various 2-dimentional shapes and 3-dimentional objects, Shape is the foundation of learning arts, other mathematics topics,such as measurement, proportion and percentages, and professional fields, such as engineering.
Secondly, in Australian Curriculum, measurement and geometry is one of content stands of Mathematics; it decides geometry is one of Mathematical contents that need to be taught and learnt. Regarding to Geometry, Australian Curriculum requires students from foundation level to level 10 develop understanding of size, shape, relative position and movement of 2-dimensional shape in plane and 3-dimentional objects in space, to investigate properties and use their understanding of these properties to define, compare and construct shapes and objects, and learn to develop geometric argument. |
A World Of Shapes from Karen C |
Researches that say about the topic
- Learning about shape, structure, location and transformations and development of spatial reasoning help children to understand not only the spatial world but also other mathematics topics. (Copley, 2000)
- Modified van Hiele Levels of geometric thought by Clements and Battista in 1992 A research of Dina van Hiele Geldof and Pierre Marie van Hiele developed a framework about children's geometry learning, called the van Hiele levels of geometric thought; there are five levels, of which only level one is relevant to Early Geometry (Haylock, 2010). The model provides teachers guidelines about children's growth of geometric understanding and thought.
Clements and Battista (1992, as cited in Reys, 2012) studied the original model and modified it to assist teachers analysis geometry activities and children's thinking.
The model shows that children at very young age can only focus on visual cues that are obvious to them, for example the line is straight or curve, and not able to recognise shapes (Level 0).
Later when they can discover more visual cues from environment to help them recognise simple shapes or objects, for example, they may say it is a rectangle, because it looks like moon; they move to Level 1. |
Children at Level 1 can start to discover shape more critically, such as describing properties based on visual cues and everyday knowledge, for example, it is a rectangle, because it look like a rectangle they have seen, or both square and rectangle have 4 sides, but triangle only has 3 sides. When children gain enough experiences of describing properties of shapes or objects, they may attend to fully recognise and carefully describe properties of shapes and objects, for example, they may recognise both equilateral triangle and obtuse triangle are triangle, but sector is not triangle; they move to Level 2.
Lehrer and his colleagues (1994, as cited in Fox, 2000) studied and extended the van Hiele Levels of Geometry Thought, and build a framework focus on geometric reasoning about classifying shapes. The first level at reasoning about shape is termed resemblance, students recognise or classify shapes on the basis of their resemblance to other shapes and often relay on irrelevant properties of shapes; for example, student may classify a chevron as a triangle. The second level, children attend to consider some attributes or parts of shapes when classifying shapes, but they might not understand the relationship between the attributes; so children may be able to classify a chevron is not triangle but a quadrilateral because it has four sides. At the next level, students start to consider properties when classifying shapes, and understand the relationship between shapes and properties. For example, students know a square is also a parallelogram because it is a quadrilateral with both pairs of opposite sides being parallel.
- It is important that young children play and handle lots of different types of shapes (Copley, 2000, Skinner & Stevens, 2012).
Lehrer and his colleagues (1994, as cited in Fox, 2000) studied and extended the van Hiele Levels of Geometry Thought, and build a framework focus on geometric reasoning about classifying shapes. The first level at reasoning about shape is termed resemblance, students recognise or classify shapes on the basis of their resemblance to other shapes and often relay on irrelevant properties of shapes; for example, student may classify a chevron as a triangle. The second level, children attend to consider some attributes or parts of shapes when classifying shapes, but they might not understand the relationship between the attributes; so children may be able to classify a chevron is not triangle but a quadrilateral because it has four sides. At the next level, students start to consider properties when classifying shapes, and understand the relationship between shapes and properties. For example, students know a square is also a parallelogram because it is a quadrilateral with both pairs of opposite sides being parallel.
Some lesson plans, classroom activities, examples of concrete materials and computer games based on learning Shape are described in Teaching Approaches.
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