debbie oestreicher's List: Math - Shapes

Virtual Spirograph lets your students determine colors, pen positions, and the radius of the circles. Students can then draw the Spirograph adding layers. One of the best features of this fun site is the “where’s the math” button that shows a break down of the math involved in the spirograph activity.


How to integrate Virtual Spirograph into the classroom: Virtual Spirograph is a great way to teach practical (and fun) math. Students will learn about epicycloids and what happens when they adjust radius and reflector placements. Virtual Spirograph will help students visualize difficult math concepts and create fun artwork in the process. This is a great site to introduce with an interactive whiteboard or projector. Students can take turns adjusting the pen position and radii. Encourage other students in the class to predict what the epicycloids will look like based on the radii chosen and the pen position. Then click draw and discuss what actually happened. Virtual Spirograph can be set up as a math center for students to visit in the one or two computer classroom. Students can visit the center in small groups and take turns predicting the outcome as a partner adjusts the pen position and radii.
The site relies on a flash player, make sure you have one before using this site with students.

This online version of the Chinese puzzle lets students select a puzzle to complete and work with 7 tans (shapes) to fill the puzzle. The tans can be rotated, flipped, and dragged into place. The puzzles can be completed online or downloaded for free as an offline game.

The purpose of this site is to promote the importance of folding circles. The circle is the most experiential, comprehensive, hands-on, educational tool we have, and yet most people do not know this. Every child in school should be folding as often as they draw pictures of circles, and discuss the information that is generated in the folding. You cannot anticipate what the circle will generate from a drawing. Folding circles is accessible to any person that can fold a circle in half, regardless of age or grade level (see How To Fold section). Paper circles are inexpensive and readily available worldwide in the form of paper plates.

Wholemovement™, as a process, is about pattern and pattern formation. In folding circles, by observing what is generated, thinking about and reflecting on those observations, using that information to explore further, we can discover and better understand the reality of the circle and the nature of what it represents.