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Manipulatives
Posted:
Jan 25, 1994 3:09 PM
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One of my favourites is Geostrips, plastic strips with holes in each end,
middle and (occasionally) quartile (?) points. They are colour-coded for
length, so you can make e.g. isosceles right triangles and scalene right
triangles, as well as a multitude of other 3-gons and 4-gons. They join
with little brass brads. My students use them to explore properties of
quadrilaterals, especially their dynamic properties. For example, you
can show by swinging it how a parallelogram is always a parallelogram and
sometimes (at one instant) a rectangle. If you join the vertices with
thin elastic thread you can explore the properties of the diagonals of
quadrilaterals. We also use them to model the linkages of things like
rocking chairs and folding patio furniture. Neat
things. They come from the UK and are carried by Creative Publications
in this country. Of course you can make them yourself for nothing out
of cardboard but they won't last as long.
* MallinPost v1.0 * #UNREGISTERED
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