Last Updated on October 2, 2024 by Editorial Team
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Geometrical figures are taught to kindergarten students in a variety of interesting ways. The idea is to befriend them with the geometrical figures while helping them fight away the math scare. That is why; teachers consider using manipulatives for geometry so that kids can feel inclined to involve themselves deeply in activity-based learning. One such manipulative is Geoboard that offers a good tool for interesting activities related to geometry learning.
Let’s take a look at interesting geoboard activities that can give a better understanding to the kindergarten kids about geometrical figures topics, such as, perimeter finding, shape identification, pattern identification, etc.
Top 6 geoboard activities for kindergarteners
1. Make faces of animals on Geoboard
In this activity, you make use of threads and connect them with relevant pegs of the board to create animals’ faces. By using figures like small rectangles, triangles, and circles, create the face of a bunny with rectangles forming the facial contour and nose, circles for eyes, triangles to create the ears of the bunny. Thus, the kids can fiddle with various geometrical shapes likewise and see how these can be used to make other animal faces.
2. Find the perimeter of various shapes such as rectangles or squares
You can start with a small number talk session where you try to collect the students’ ideas on what they understand about the perimeter. When they confirm that perimeter is the sum total of all boundaries of an enclosed figure, you provide them with some figures. Means, tell them to draw rectangles with length and breadth as 4 cm and 5 cm respectively. They will make use of materials provided to them to draw these and do the mental calculation to find the answer. This is an interesting way to drive kids into the addition part of finding the perimeter of an enclosed figure.
3. Letter drawing activity for kindergarteners
At the Kindergartener stage, the kids are expected to be fluent in drawing the alphabets of capital type. The students who find it difficult to deal with letters due to learning difficulties can use Geoboard to develop a deeper understanding of the alphabet forming strokes and shapes. With the help of a guide initially, they try to make alphabets, such as A, B, C, and so on. Then, as per the comfort level achieved, you can give them a dictation activity, where you sound out the letter, and kids create the alphabet using loom bands on the geoboard. Memory recall becomes quicker and sharper with this geoboard activity for kindergarteners and they develop suitable comfort with the letters.
4. Draw theme-based shapes
Theme-based shapes are those that belong to a common area of learning. For example, start the day saying, ‘We will learn about trees today, or sea animals will be the topic of the lesson today” or anything similar, such as fruits and vegetable shapes, etc. As a teacher, you can give the kids the challenge to create these shapes by showing them a hint picture. The kids improve their cognition, motor skills and also develop vocabulary by knowing about various terms or names common to a theme by performing this geoboard activity for kindergarteners.
5. Draw triangles that have one dot in the center
As you know Geoboard is a pegboard with hooks. You can make your own geoboard in a way that pegs are arranged in a 4×4 matrix. So, you get ample options to try making triangles with one dot in the center. Encourage kids to create as many triangles as possible with this condition and see how they fare. You can take away the math scare or discomfort of any kind regarding the shapes or triangles from the kids’ minds by using this geoboard activity. Further, this activity can be expanded to help kids find ways to transform the triangles into various other forms by connecting the dots strategically.
6. Give them printable shape cards to draw them on Geoboard
With the help of rubber band or loom bands, the kids are asked to copy the figure given on the activity printable to create the shape on the Geoboard. This activity improves the hand-eye coordination of the kids. They enhance their fine motor skills and utilize these for creating pictures that have geometrical shapes as their components. Some of the items worth trying to create on a Geoboard are – a leaf, a house or hut, a butterfly, etc.
To conclude,
Geoboard is a very interesting manipulative that kindles the minds of young learners and helps them absorb the idea of drawing shapes. A deeper understanding of the concepts of measurement can also be provided by telling them that each peg distance equals one unit. This prepares their mind to count the pegs to understand the concept of length and perimeter eventually. Thus, by actually connecting the dots and creating shapes, kids can find the practical meaning of the basic concepts that constitute early geometry learning.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,