Straws A shape exploration resource You need: Cheap straws without bendy ends Threading laces with circular

ar cross section, not flat

Cut the straws. I had straws 30cm long and cut: yellow straws into 2 pieces (14cm long in order to be able to make right angled triangles) green straws into 3 pieces (10 cm long) blue straws into 4 pieces (7.5 cm) red straws into 7 pieces (4.25 cm)

Activity 1 Thread 2 straws of the same length. Show me an acute angle, a right angle, an obtuse angle, a reflex angle. Thread 2 more straws of the same length. Show me a triangle. What kind of triangle is it? Show me a square, a rhombus. Are all the rhombuses the same? What is the same and what is different? Activity 2 Take 4 straws, each a different length. Before you thread them, list the shapes you think you will make. Make the shapes. Did you make any shapes not on your list? Were there any shapes on your list that you couldnt make? Explain why you couldnt make them. Activity 3 Take 4 straws; two long ones (same length) and two short ones (same length). Repeat activity 2. Which shapes do you think you wont be able to make this time? Why?

ccjmaths.co.uk

chris@ccjmaths.co.uk

Activity 4 Take 5, 6 or 7 straws all the same length. Describe the shape you will make. Sketch it. Make it. What have you found out about regular polygons? Is having all the lengths the same enough? Activity 5 Make sets of shapes such as quadrilaterals, hexagons, pentagons. Take photos of each shape. Use Venn and Carroll diagrams to sort the shapes. Carroll diagrams: If you put the label has at least 1 right angle for one column, what label do you need for the other column? Make a set of labels that will always give one empty cell Venn diagrams: How would you label each circle? How would you label the overlap? What label could describe the area outside the circles? Make labels so that you have at least one shape in each area. Activity 6 You are going to make shapes with acute, right, obtuse and reflex angles. How many straws will you need to thread? Does it matter whether they are all the same length or not? Sketch or take photos of the shapes you have made, labelling all the acute, right, obtuse and reflex angles. Find other pairs of pupils who have used a different number of straws. Make a table to show how many of each angle you have made, for shapes with 3 straws, 4 straws, 5 straws and so on. Activity 7 I had 2 red and 2 green straws. First I threaded red, green, red, green. Then I threaded red, red, green, green. What shapes do you think I made each time? Try to make all the shapes. Did you make any extra ones?

ccjmaths.co.uk

chris@ccjmaths.co.uk

Activity 8 Use the straws to make these shapes: rectangle, square, parallelogram, kite, delta etc. Now write rules to tell someone else how to make each of the shapes Activity 9 Make a rectangle. Now make another rectangle with sides twice as long. How many copies of your first rectangle will fit inside the one with sides twice as long? What will happen if the sides are three times as long? What will happen if the sides are 100 times as long? Does this only work for rectangles? What about triangles, pentagons, hexagons? Which types of triangle will always tessellate? Why do you think that is? Activity 10 In this activity all the straws must be the same length. How many different triangles can you make? How many different quadrilaterals? Describe and sketch them. How many different pentagons? Describe and sketch them. What do you think will happen with shapes of 6 or more sides? How many sides do you need in order to make an infinite number of shapes?

ccjmaths.co.uk

chris@ccjmaths.co.uk