Geoboards
When teaching elementary school, one of my students’ favorite manipulatives was the geoboard. Unless you are a teacher, you may have no idea what this little gadget is, but lucky for you, I am about to teach you how to make one for your own child to enjoy at home. It requires a few simple materials but quite a bit of supervision.
You will need a block of wood approximately six inches square, but this can vary greatly. You will also need a handful of nails, a hammer, a ruler, and 20 or 30 colored rubber bands in an array of sizes.
Using the ruler, measure out a square grid of points equidistant from each other making sure to leave an empty border around the edge. For example, on a six inch square you would place your ruler flush with the left side and mark points on the one, two, three, four, and five inch points on the ruler so that there is a one inch border along the edge of the square. This grid would have 25 nails. However, you can create this grid in any possible size.
When you have finished construction the geoboard, be sure to put away all of your materials, and then show your child how to stretch the rubber bands to make squares, triangles, rectangles, pentagons, etc. on the board. Use the board to teach shapes as well as creative thinking skills. Challenge your child to create a picture on the geoboard and praise her for her effort.
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Written by Laura on December 22, 2010
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