Objective: Students will be able to identify triangles as equilateral,
isosceles, or scalene.
Activity-Have student pairs work together to prepare flash cards. Each card
could have an illustration and name of one kind of triangle on the front of the
card. Students can write the description on the triangle on the back of the
card. They can use the cards to help reinforce the images and names of the
different triangles. Encourage students to draw some of the triangles
"upside-down" or "sideways." This will further aid visual identification and
generalization. Encourage students to keep the cards for the ne xt lesson.
Activity-Direct students to spend ten minutes on a home triangle hunt. Students
can list all the t riangles they find at home within ten minutes. Encourage them
to use a ruler (either metric or English units) to determine whether the
triangles are equilateral, isosceles, or scalene. Allow for creativity in
describing triangles such as "pie slice" or something similar. Students can
share their lists and discuss which items best fit the definition of a triangle.
Activity-Ask each group of four students to create a comic strip or computer
anima tion that shows how to construct a scalene triangle given three line
segments of different lengths. Explain that the final strip may contain a
variety of pictures, illustrations, and images but cannot contain any dialogue
or written directions. Students can assume different roles, such as director,
artist, colorist, and production coordinator. Encourage students to be creative
in their designs, approach, and layout. Arrange for them to show their solutions
to the class and have the class critique the products. Allow students to make
any revisions or improvements they wish. Completed strips or animations can be
shown to other classes.