Another day, another anecdote of children basing their point of reference in ‘traditional’ areas on technological experiences.
Today we were looking at 3D shape, and the group I was working with was finding it difficult to classify and describe the shapes of prisms. We discussed the two main faces, their properties and the fact that he other faces were rectangles, but they still found it hard to express exactly what a prism was.
Suddenly it clicked for one boy. “I know what it is,” he said, “It’s like in Google Sketch up- you draw the shape, then you pull it out with the pull tool- that’s a prism!”. What an explanation, and what a knowledge base. Fancy ‘getting’ Google sketch up before you get basic geometry- these children really do think differently.
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