Sharon McCormack, Petrina O’Grady & Vira Pirrotta (Learning & Teaching Team)

Mathematics Term 2

Special Issue Welcome to our special issue of our School Magazine with a focus on Mathematics. It has been a very busy Semester in school improvement for learning and teaching. You will notice across the many pages within this issue that each level is sharing the learning and teaching of Geometry in Mathematics. Mathematics has been a major focus for improvement in the teachers work across each of the year levels. Professional Learning On our school closure day this term, we focussed on building teacher knowledge around the area of Geometry in Mathematics. We were led by Mathematics Learning Consultants from the Catholic Education, Western Region Office. Teachers had the opportunity to experience the use of the geometry equipment and how this could be applied into the learning studios within mathematics lessons.

Sharon McCormack, Petrina O’Grady & Vira Pirrotta (Learning & Teaching Team)

Mathematics Term 2

Why Geometry? Why do we do Geometry? To discover patterns, find areas, volumes, lengths and angles, and better understand the world around us.

In Geometry, we can have different dimensions. The number of dimensions is how many values are needed to locate points on a shape.

Point, Line, Plane and Solid

• A Point has no dimensions, only position • A Line is one-dimensional • A Plane is two dimensional (2D) • A Solid is three-dimensional (3D)

Plane Geometry is about flat (2D) shapes like lines, circles and triangles ... shapes that can be drawn on a piece of paper

Solid Geometry is about three dimensional (3D) objects like cubes, prisms, cylinders and spheres.

Sharon McCormack, Petrina O’Grady & Vira Pirrotta (Learning & Teaching Team)

Mathematics Term 2

Transformation

Symmetry

Transformation is a general term for four specific ways to manipulate the shape of a point, a line, or shape or object. Types of transformations in maths is

• Translation

• Reflection

• Rotation

• Dilation

Symmetry is when one shape becomes exactly like another if you flip, slide or turn it.

Sharon McCormack, Petrina O’Grady & Vira Pirrotta (Learning & Teaching Team)

Mathematics Term 2

Resources for Geometry It has been important for the children to work with a range of geometry equipment to develop their understandings of the 2D shapes, 3D objects, transformation and symmetry. We purchased enough equipment for all year levels to support the learning – Geoboards, Classroom Kits, Pattern Blocks, 3D Solid Kits and Geo straws. You will see these being used across the year levels.