KS2 Maths - Geometry

This resource from Teachers TV features Richard Dunne, Mathematics consultant, who explains that mathematics involves abstraction and symbolism, the ingredients of higher order mental processes, an essential skill that students need to develop.

At Scotts Primary School in Hornchurch, Havering, Gary Clapperton is revising the geometry of two dimensional shapes with his Year Six class, using techniques which have been introduced by Richard to enable students to make sense of the mathematics being taught.
He uses digital photographs of the local area that the children have taken and the focus of the lesson is the distinction between explicit shapes, those that can be clearly identified and drawn onto the photographs and implicit shapes, those that can be found by mathematical abstraction.

Students identify and draw round explicit shapes on their own photographs, use the interactive whiteboard to demonstrate their shapes to the class and are prompted to identify parallelograms and isosceles triangles. They then draw their own implicit shapes, using a ruler and pencil, which requires consideration of the ratio of the length of the sides, as well as estimating the angles within their shapes.