This article comes from Teacher Qu Shaoyun’s excellent course "How to Develop Children’s Mathematical Potential". Thank you for your wonderful summary. There are nine topics in total. This issue is the sixth section. My video also has a 100-episode scientific experiment in , which can be combined to give children a more three-dimensional sensory experience.
Speaking of "graphics in space", there are both planar and three-dimensional figures; there are both figures with obvious mathematical significance, such as circles, squares, triangles, sphericals, cubes, etc., and there are also various complex or irregular figures encountered in life.
When children can distinguish different graphics in the space, it means that they have "graphic recognition capabilities", which is the starting point for children's intelligent development of space.
1. Understand the graphics, don’t remember the graphics
You may think, “Isn’t this too simple? Do you still need to spend your effort to enlighten? These few graphics can be remembered quickly by a child.”
If you understand this way, then you must regard the "graphics" problem as a problem that does not require thinking and only needs to be solved by memory.
For example, you may have had this experience: holding a triangle puzzle to tell your child that this is a triangle. Children usually have strong memory and they will remember it quickly.
But if you draw a triangle with different shapes on paper next time and ask him what shape it is, he may not recognize it again.
Why is this? Because children only remember that specific figure, relying on their strong camera-like memory, but they do not understand what features are called triangles, so if you give them a changed triangle, they don’t know.
Simple memory is not called completing the enlightenment of the graphics.
In the early childhood stage before the age of 6, the goal of our children to enlighten them is to let them truly master the characteristics and meaning of the graphics through repeated observation, communication, thinking, and even imagination.
For example, three sides form a triangle, and the four sides of a square are equal... This is to lay the foundation for children to learn geometry in the future.
So what stages of development should children go through to understand and understand graphics?
2. Three stages for children to understand graphics
st stage: be able to identify a complete closed figure and begin to gradually understand mathematical figures, such as circles, squares, etc.
At this time, children will have a typical behavior, which is to touch the outline around the real object with their hands, and then put their hands in. This is their exploration of graphics.
At this stage, we need to create more opportunities for them, such as finding building blocks of different shapes for them, or digging holes of different shapes in a box so that they can feel it.
Generally speaking, 3-year-old children can basically find the most easily recognizable circles, squares and triangles; they can complete the graphics pairing, and can also find the specified graphics from several graphics and name the graphics.
stage 2: It can distinguish between straight lines and curved lines.
At this time, they can understand rectangles, semicircles, diamonds, and trapezoids based on the first stage, and know that they are straight lines, while circles and ellipses are curved graphics.
Generally, after the age of 4, children's ability to master flat graphics has been greatly improved. They can accurately identify these figures from the environment without being affected by color, size, and position.
Stage 3: Start to know that planar graphics and stereoscopic figures are different, and you can understand basic stereoscopic figures, such as spheres, cylinders, cubes and cuboids .
5-year-old children are able to accurately name and characteristics of known figures; they can filter, classify and arrange things according to their geometric characteristics. The three stages of
are a development law for children to understand different graphics. But for every specific figure, the child’s learning process is also regular.
Generally speaking, children understand a kind of graph in the order of "pairing-definition-naming".
For example, know the circle.
At the beginning, they could only find two circles from many figures, and they could realize that the two figures were the same or similar;
slowly, you say to him, "Baby, which one is a circle? Find a circle." He could find it out, which is called "definition";
finally saw the actual figure and could say that it was a "circle".
So, pairing is the easiest, and the next step is to identify it, while naming the name when you see the graph.
You need to be a careful parent, pay attention to your child’s development level at any time, and adjust your own enlightenment methods.
. How to teach children to master the graphics in the space?
teach you 5 ways to fully stimulate children's interest:
First trick: Encourage children to look more, touch more, and use their hands to fiddle with objects
Researchers found that since infancy, children have been using vision to distinguish the shape of figures. They like to look at mothers' faces and patterns, which can be judged by the length of time the children are staring at.
When the child stretches out his hand and wants to touch it, it is best for you to satisfy the child's wish;
As the child can grasp objects in a coordinated manner with his hands and eyes, those rubber toys or model cards with object shapes are better, such as apples, balls, and bananas. They will actively feel the shape of the object by touching and putting it to their mouths and tastings;
Until the age of two or three, children can develop visible pairing and identifying shapes based on language expression, but it is this earlier experience that gives them the most stable judgment ability to recognize the shape of the object.
Second trick: I will teach you two fun games
The biggest charm of these two games is that children do not simply repeat the shapes in the game, but they are always thinking about shapes.
. Origami Cutting Game
You can start with your children with easy to recognize and fold square paper. Younger children can tear paper directly, and then origami. If you can use scissors to cut origami, you can use scissors to cut origami.
You can tear a circular hole on the paper. At this time, many children like to continue to tear the circular hole. In this process, children can experience how the closed figure of the complete circle changes, and eventually become an open figure.
Using origami and paper cutting is the easiest way for children to experience basic flat graphics. Squares, triangles, and rectangles are gradually becoming familiar with this fold and cut.
. If the child is older, a simple plane and flower basket can be folded out in an imitation; each step of the movement is combined with the shape of an origami, and only by constantly thinking about space can it be finally completed.
. Color the shape
As the name suggests, it is to draw the outer frame of the shape and let the child have a coloring game.
To do this game, I want to remind you that it is best to combine various things that are visible in children's lives and give shapes a realistic name and meaning, such as a flower, a drink, or an apple. You can draw the border and the children paint it.
If the children like this game very much, they can also let the children create graphic borders and you can complete the color.
In the game, you and your children will have many topics: topics about colors, lines, things names, and all the way to shapes. As long as you guide and communicate more, the children will find it very relaxed and fun to master.
The third trick: let the toys help
Here, building blocks are going to come in handy again. Various cubes, cuboids, and other three-dimensional figures have strengthened the child's graphic consciousness while fiddling.
After careful observation of each toy, you can find flat graphics such as "square, rectangle" from every surface of the building block. After playing with
toys, you can also classify and collect and place them according to the graphics, which not only cultivates good habits, but also allows children to learn from the graphics attributes.
also has some ready-made toys, such as using a few ice cream sticks to experience the composition characteristics of triangles, squares and rectangles;
uses shape disassembly and assembly trucks, tile-pieces, shape building blocks and beads to further distinguish the differences between the figures; there is also safe plasticine, which can also help a lot.
The fourth trick: Happy shape nursery rhyme
The catchy nursery rhyme and shape are combined, which has both rhythm and picture, which is especially beneficial for children to actively understand the graphics and expand their spatial imagination.
For example:
"Magic Triangle"
triangle, three sides, three corners,
becomes a small fish swimming in the water, and turns into a duckling and squeaking.
triangle, three sides, three corners,
turns into a fox and smiles, turns into a kangaroo and jumps.
For example:
"Shape Change"
Round round shape change,
turns to wheels run on the ground,
turns to a ball jump high,
I am a good baby with a round shape;
square, change,
turns to a box look for it,
turns to a pillow and hug,
I am a good baby with a square shape;
triangle, change,
turns to a kite flying in the sky,
turns to a hat and wear it on the head,
I am a good baby with a triangle shape.
These shapes of nursery rhymes are very picture-like. If you sing the nursery rhymes and draw them and find relevant props to design and perform them, the effect will be better.
The fifth trick: Discover the graphic elements in picture books
I recommend two very useful picture books to you.
A book is called "Construction Site". The book talks about how a house is built. You and your children can learn a lot of architectural skills from the drawings, and each skill is inseparable from the graphic design in the building: what shape is
to set up the ladder to be stable; how can the bricks of cubes be built into a block; how to install a rectangular skylight; what are the characteristics of the shape of the cement truck, etc.
Once you open this book, illiterate children can also tell a rich story from their own perspective. In addition to the architectural process, the ones that make them think the most in the story are of course these shape issues.
Another book is "My Variety Bathtub". The story begins with a question from the little protagonist: "Can't you change a different bathtub occasionally?"
So, he imagined that he had a spherical bathtub, a maze bathtub, a honeycomb bathtub, a pudding bathtub, and a pyramid bathtub.
Not only that, he also designed a wonderful bathtub for his parents and brothers to suit them...
The story shows a wonderful world of spatial graphics through the little boy's fantasy of the bathtub!
Graphics Picture Book
reminds you a question: Enlightenment graphics concept is not only enlightenment of graphics in the sense of mathematics, but also bringing all shapes in life into the child's thinking space, so that children can understand the relationship between space.
The significance of doing this is that children can fully develop their spatial imagination through this early cultivation, so that they can think and reproduce the relationship between objects' shape, position and structure. And this ability is necessary to have creativity. Why do you say so? Let's take the cube as an example.
When a child first saw a cube, he asked him how many sides he had, and he could only tell the few sides he could see;
Gradually, he knew the cube from various angles and formed a complete impression of the cube in his mind. Even if the eyes couldn't see it, he knew that those sides exist. This requires the effect of spatial imagination and requires previous spatial experience as accumulation.
Once one day, when he needs innovation, he will search the figures that have been understood and stored in his brain. If a cube happens to be needed, he can combine the characteristics of the cube to create what he needs.
Summary of this lecture
Enlightenment of "graphics in space" for children is not simply remembering the name of the graphics, but understanding the characteristics of the graphics based on full observation and thinking.
It is necessary to let children read, touch and do more. Paper cutting and building blocks are very useful.
The spatial imagination ability based on "graphics" is very important to children. In addition to mathematical applications, children's creative thinking and the ability to recognize graphics "Chinese characters" in Chinese are inseparable from it.
