'non square rectangle' and similar terminology for shapes

[daveg]

I have never needed to know the properties of a 3D shape other than to teach them to others. Likewise I have never needed to tesselate, rotate, conjugate or otherwise manipulate little figures drawn on squared paper.

I've got some pentagonal floor tiles I can let you have very cheap...

[mystery]

OK I didn't explain myself very well as I was in a hurry. I was thinking of a year 5 lesson I observed where children were taught that a prism was a solid which, wherever you chopped transversely you got the same cross section. They were not taught that the two parallel faces had to be polygons. Then a child who, quite sensibly by this definition, said a cylinder was a prism, was marked wrongly. This is similar to some teaching I've seen in KS1 where a regular polgyon was defined as a polygon where all the sides are the same length, and no mention of the angles being the same too. Children were then marked wrongly for saying shapes were regular (by the partial definition given) when they were not regular, even though the child was right by the definition given.

Yes I'm not entirely sure why a lot of this stuff is taught so early in the KS1 / KS2 national curriculum, but it is in there. It might be best reserved for KS3 / KS4 when maybe then there can be some discussion about regular polygons tending towards circles as the number of sides increases etc etc.

[Guest55]

Don't even start me on this topic ...

My DC wa taught in reception that 'a rectangle has two long sides and two short sides' ...


daveg as long as those tiles are not part of your 'regular' stock then I would give them a home.