Teaching Geometry Through Play: Using Puzzles to Teach K - 6th grade Geometry

This 60 page booklet incorporates the theories of Pierre van Hiele and Dina van HIele-Geldorf, better known as the van Hiele Theory, to teach developmental geometry in elementary and middle school. The van Hiele's were pioneers in the understanding that children go through different levels of cognitive development in their understanding of geometric concepts, and that these levels changed with the age and education of the child. Through their work, we've come to understand what kinds of thinking can be developed by children as they grow and develop.
This booklet is based on the idea of using a set of 7 tiles, which I call "van Hiele Tiles," based on an article published in the journal Teaching Children Mathematics. In the article, Pierre van Hiele describes a method of using "play" to develop children's thinking about geometry. The booklet describes the Van Hiele Model in details, and then has explicit, self contained activities at each level of thinking.
These activities require the use of a set of 7 tiles, which can be printed and cut out using the template in the book. These tiles are much more versatile than tangrams or pattern blocks, as they contain a much more diverse collection of shapes, including a right scalene triangles, equilateral triangle, isosceles obtuse triangle, isosceles trapezoid, concave trapezoid and oblong rectangle, which can be configured into many different shapes (including larger versions of one another.) You can learn more about these shapes at www.goodnitebob.com .