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Saturday, September 3, 2011

The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns Book and Activity

Here is a wonderful geometry book for children about two (2) dimensional shapes by a wonderful author, Marilyn Burns, who knows how to engage kids and make learning math lots of  fun.

The Greedy Triangle (Scholastic Bookshelf)

In this delightful story, recommended for grades K-5, a young triangle is bored and unhappy. He visits a 'shapeshifter' who gives him another side and angle and he becomes a quadrilateral. Several more times he becomes bored, unhappy, and even greedy and the 'shapeshifter' keeps giving him one more side and angle. Children are able to predict the storyline and enjoy the story while learning more about polygons.


After reading (or listening to) the story, children could go outside and use sidewalk chalk to draw a triangle(s) and all the shapes that the greedy triangle became. They could also label the shapes with the correct number of angles (and sides) that the shapes have. Older students could also label the shapes with their names (ex. pentagon, octagon, etc.).


While outside look for shapes in your environment. Are there any buildings around? What shapes are the windows, doors, etc.


If there is no safe outdoor area to work in, the students could use a large piece of construction paper or poster board to draw and label their shapes.










Would you like to see a video of the book? Click Here.


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