Teaching math to fifth grade and integrating the Common Core standards means taking on geometry. Students must learn how to understand and describe the attributes of quadrilaterals as an example.
Here is a song that teaches and a tip on how to do a class activity followed up by creating a table to help compare and remember the attributes.
These two quick tips for teaching math can be applied to many other standards, and are a great example of teaching in creative and concrete ways.
Sing the “If I Were a Quadrilateral” song created by Amanada to help your students learn the properties and kinds of quadrilaterals. They will be able to describe the sides as congruent and the angles.
This is a quick and easy way to help meet Common Core standards like 5.G.3. Understand that attributes belonging to a category of two-dimensional figures also belong to all subcategories of that category.
For example, all rectangles have four right angles and squares are rectangles, so all squares have four right angles. {Free download}
Here is a sample of exploring quadrilaterals using geoboards and collecting the properties in a table by Mrs. Alvarado.
If students can construct, compare and contrast then they are well on their way to being able to apply what they’ve learned.
What do you think could help 5th grade students learn the properties of a quadrilateral? We’d love to hear your ideas when you join the Teach Junkie community.
Remember that singing can be a great way to keep positivity in the classroom in addition to helping meet the needs of different learning styles. You can apply singing a concept to almost anything you want your students to learn and making it concrete is always a successful teaching strategy.
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Leslie {aka the original Teach Junkie} loves learning new things to make teaching easier and more effective. She enjoys featuring creative classroom fun when she's not designing teacher shirts, making kindergarten lesson plans or planning her family's next trip to Disney World.