Lesson 8

Geometric symbol-o

Description:

Students will revisit the Geometric Animal-O game, but with an added twist to help them learn and practice using symbols to identify objects.

Learning Objectives for Lesson:

• Spatial awareness

• Relative positioning

• Communication

• Symbols

Materials:

• Blank maps

• Objects

  • (Traffic) Cones

  • Chairs

  • Hula Hoops

• Stickers matching each object

• Answer key

• Pencils

Intro:

Orienteers use maps to see patterns of objects. This game is very familiar to the students, but it is not entirely the same game as Geometric Animal-O. The general concept remains the same, but this time the students must also match objects to symbols. Some symbols might resemble the objects they relate to, while other symbols may look completely different. In order to be successful, they will have to keep track of which symbols correspond to each object.

Warm-Up:

Animal Races: Students race back and forth moving like different animal, or in other silly ways.

Main Activity:

Geometric Symbol-O: Students must identify objects based on their symbols on the map, and place a sticker on their map to match the location of the object. Once all students are successful, they will do this in reverse by looking at a new map with a different arrangement of symbols, and will need to construct the new arrangement.

Reflection:

• What was challenging about matching up the animals? What was easy? 

• What sort of mistakes did people make? Why did those mistakes occur? How did you figure out the correct answer? 

• What happens if we rotate the answer key map? Is the arrangement still correct?

Extra Activity:

Flow Puzzles: Students complete puzzles where they must connect several pairs of spots in a grid without the lines overlapping. (This is based on the mobile app, "Flow Free.")

Notes:

Some students will find this activity fairly easy and straight-forward, while other students will struggle keeping everything sorted in their heads. It helps to start the activity by having students make a key, where they match each symbol to the matching sticker before trying to place them in the correct position as well.