Circle Discoveries

I went to the Y.  I came back.

"Look, Mama, I've been discovering things about circles while you were gone."

"Oh really?  What did you discover?"

(It looks like she discovered an old pad of graph paper and was exploring a drawing of concentric circles made by me a while back - she drew in the divisions -- and then moved on to make one of her own with a compass.)

"Well, I discovered that there are lots of ways to divide a circle...and I discovered that no matter how big or small a circle is you can still divide it the same way."

 "Well, that's very interesting!  But what's this?"

"This is a cylinder and these are circles."

"Cool!  And what's this one?"

"These are ovals.  They're squooshed (sic) circles.  This one has one triangle with a curve and the others are rectangles."

"Hmmm...I don't think I agree with that.  Remember that a rectangle has to have four right angles.  That's why they call it a rec-tANGLE..."

"Oh...yeah."

I really think that using geometry and shapes to explore number concepts is a strong combination.  I've been working on a new idea that's sort of algebraic, geometric and numeric all at once.  Since the kid seems to be experiencing a post-holiday renaissance I might just be able to finish up the activity with her some time soon.  Stay tuned!