Geoplane : A wonderful didactic and creative resource.

Hi everyone!

Today I am going to share with you an interesting didactic resource for working geometry called geoplane. It will help us to introduce geometric concepts in a manipulative way. I used this resource to introduce the flat figures in the first year of primary school. 

But first… a bit of history!

The geoplano was created by the mathematician Caleb Gattegno in 1960, who was looking for a method to teach geometry in a didactic way. The original geoplane consisted of a square wooden board with nails forming a weft, in such a way that these protruded and could be hooked elastic rubber bands that will serve to represent the different geometric figures.

Nowadays, there are three types of geoplanes:

1. Orthometric: Its shape is squared, usually formed by 25 equidistant points. 

2. Circular: Circular plot, where the points are spaced at the same distance. 

3. Isometric: Triangular plot, the points are located in the vertices of the equilateral triangles.

How I used it with my students? 

First of all, we started to remember the figure plans such as the square, the triangle, the rectangle and we had to look for examples of these figures in the class. Next, we remember that the points that delimit these figures are contained in a plane and to support my explanation, I used the geoplanes. I gave a geoplane for a group of four students, each one had a number from 1 to 4 and the number that I said had to follow my instructions. For example: Number 2, take a red elastic and you have to make a square. Now, the number 3 has to make a triangle inside the square that the previous partner has made.

From my point of view, it is a good material for the geometric representation in the first years in a ludic and attractive way, and not as it was traditionally, verbally and abstractly. In addition, the geoplane can serve to recognize and acquire the notion of angle, vertex and side; compare different surfaces and lengths (stretching the gums to more grids); introduce the classification of polygons according to the count of sides and many more utilities. Did you know about this resource? And what do you use?