I knew there was a better way to teach what cutting geometric solids looked like and wanted it to be more hands-on and visual. I felt the normal stand-up lecture or worksheet wasn't enough for students to learn. The first thought I had was a hands on activity with Play-Doh and forming shapes. Then I stumbled across Crafty Cut.(P.S. Make sure to use the link above or get the one with the P in the bottom right hand corner.)
Crafty Cut is a gamified version of cutting geometric solids. There are a bunch of different modes, but the free "unlocked" version only gives you Cut Mode (Most Important), Combine, and a Create Mode.
The way I did it was 1st day students played all the way through Cut Mode on their own or if they got stuck they could ask their neighbors. If they finished early they could work on combine mode, which is a little more difficult to get all 3 stars. But in Cut Mode they are given different 3D shapes and have to make different 2D shapes cutting it. Students liked the problem solving in the app.
One of the first ones you get in Easy Mode is to cut a rectangle from a Cylinder, here are some screenshots from the game.
It was a different app that let students explore cutting geometric solids instead of the typical lesson.
Nice idea! I was thinking of using this app with a group of 4-5th grade kids. How much time did you allow for students to initialy explore and did you have students fill out a sheet/journal about their experience? I have students for about 50-60 minutes each day. I'm looking at using it next week if I can get approval from my tech department.
ReplyDeleteThe free version of this didn't take to long. I knew they had seen all of the information before in 6-8th grade in their geometry chapters I just needed a day to review. So it took about a day which we have 50 minute periods.
DeleteI didn't have them journal, but now that you say that I definitely will next year!! Thank you.