TOY/GAME: Spacial Geometry through ITSPHUN Math Shapes

[Ryan Goble]

A cool learning game I read about in Scientific American:

Their website it - http://www.itsphun.com

Here is a YouTube video:

[Fred Mindlin]

There's a lot of appeal to the possibilities here, Ryan -- but I think I'd still do these activities in the old fashioned way: toothpicks for the edges and either gumdrops or soaked whole dried peas for the vertices. For me the visual confusion of all the nobby bits sticking out everywhere spoils a lot of the learning potential of this product. Kids can visualize the geometry more easily with clean lines and a clear one-to-one correspondence between geometric elements and the building blocks. With these, it's not readily apparent where the vertices and edges even are...

It takes patience to work with the soaked peas as vertices - they break easily - and it takes self-restraint to work with gum drops. But kids really get it. I've had fourth graders succeed in making a tessellated icosahedron, with tissue paper glued on as the faces. Makes a wonderful Christmas tree top star!

[Ryan Goble]

Great point from a seasoned educator - thanks for sharing all your thinking it was interesting to read as a non-math teacher!