Growth Point 1

Materials: Manipulatives that are long and straight such as straws, rods, skewers.

Activity: Explain to the students that you are going to briefly show them a picture of a shape. Their job is to try and remember this shape and recreate the shape using the straws.

After most students have created their shape, tell them that you will show them the original shape again. Their job is to talk to a partner about what is the same/different about their shape and the original. What helped them remember the shape? Does the shape remind you of something else? What could help you for the next one? Repeat with different shapes.

Related key ideas: Features, properties, visualisation.

Variation: Ask students to draw the shapes they see rather than create them. This will support students in representing shapes.

Provide examples where multiple shapes are combined (see example below).

Materials: Pattern/attribute blocks, pencils, paper.

Activity: Students are asked to use a set number of blocks to create a picture (four to eight, depending on level of complexity). After the picture is created, students trace around the outside of their creation and remove the blocks so that only an outline is left.

Materials: Activity cards from Appendix 2, cut out and sorted into groups.

Activity: Students work in groups of four. Within each group, one student takes all the ‘A’ cards, the next all of the ‘B’ cards and the others ‘C’ and ‘D’. All four students sit and face each other with their pieces on the table.

Students need to recreate the four original squares using their cards, without speaking and touching only the pieces that belong to them.

Related key ideas: Orientation, Transformation, Visualisation.

Variation: Students work in smaller groups using fewer pieces and are given a short list of words they can use. Repeat the activity using circular or hexagonal pieces (from Appendix 2).

This task has been adapted from PASMAP Book 1 (Mulligan & Mitchelmore 2016a) with permission from the authors.

Materials: Pattern/attribute blocks/Appendix 3.

Activity: Show students the pictures from Appendix 3. Ask students to recreate the pictures using pattern blocks. Which shapes did you use to make your picture? Can you describe how the blocks fit together to make a new shape?

Encourage students to trace around their blocks and then remove the blocks to look at the new shape created. Ask students to draw in the lines to show the original shapes.

Ask students to make their own pictures using two to four blocks and trace around their creation. In partners, students swap their drawings and see if they can recreate the image using blocks.

Related key ideas: Features, orientation, visualisation.

Variation: Ask students to make a picture using two to four pieces of the same shape block. Ask, how did you fit your shapes together? What did you notice about the sides of the shapes? Partner students who have used the same shape to create their picture. What is the same about your creations? What is different? Why do you think they are different even though you used the same shape?

This task has been adapted from PASMAP Book 2 (Mulligan & Mitchelmore 2016b) with permission from the authors.

Materials: Square pattern/attribute blocks

Activity: Give each student a square pattern block. Ask, what do you notice about the features of this block? Bring their attention to the corners, what do we call these? How do they feel? How are they made? (when two sides of the shape meet).

Ask students to use their thumb and index finder to show what a corner of a square looks like.