POLYGONS OR NON-POLYGONS- An Inquiry by Grade 5

I started my conversation with bit of provocation. I asked the learners what is a “Polygon”? Rishit said, “It is a shape”. Amogh said, “They are shapes that don’t have any round bits on them. All of the lines are straight.” After having this brainstorming conversation I asked the kids to draw two shapes one that they think is a polygon and another that is a non-polygon. Once they have drawn the shapes I asked them to stick their post-aids under the categories of polygon and non-polygon.

We ended up with this:

After this I asked each learner to analyze weather all the post-it has been placed under the right category or not. Atharv said, “a cube shape has been placed under polygon category but it’s a non-polygon as it is a 3D- shape”. Like this each learner used his/her understanding of polygons and made few changes.

After listening and evaluating everyone’s point of view learners themselves came up to a conclusion that “A polygon is 2D closed shape with 3 or more straight lines that do not cross over each other”.

I think this inquiry will help learners to examine shapes using the definition constructed by them and they will make appropriate decisions when classifying shapes.

Isha Malik

HRT – 5 BLUE