Quadrilaterals: Properties of Parallelograms

Thursday, February 4, 2016
Today was just one of those "GREAT" teaching days. I had so much planned for my students and I really wanted them to conquer the properties of parallelograms. I used two different types of colored paper (purple and lime green) to make my flipbook because I want students to see the relationship between parallelograms, rectangles,  rhombi, and squares. This worked out great because I didn't even tell the students that they all had properties in common, they asked me if they were related because they were in the "same color." :)

I started with the vocabulary page first because many of my students accommodations include "front-load vocabulary". Frontloading vocabulary is powerful for my special education & ELL students because I can help them learn the meaning of new words and strengthen their independent skills for constructing meaning from text.


After the vocabulary section, I started with the five properties of parallelograms. I pulled out my whiteboards and had students make 3 columns (Property, Picture, and how to solve). This turned out better than expected because all of my students referenced their whiteboards throughout the entire class.



After we made this chart, we started on the three parallelogram example problems. I told them they have 3 minutes to discuss with their group which property we are going to use to solve each example. There were some great discussions going on and I overheard students using the vocabulary we just went over. In the previous years, I had students just say "it's property 4 because the angles are not across from each other." Today, I heard "we are going to use property 4 because consecutive angles are always supplementary". (insert proud teacher face here). After three minutes were up, I called on each group to tell me what property we are going to use to solve the problem and that they had to walk me through how to set the equation up. I did this for every example and it made the lesson "student-centered" since the students had total control of the classroom! My co-teacher likes to color code the angles to help students solve for missing angles. For example, he likes to color a pair of opposite angles in blue and the other pair in pink. This helps many students to determine whether they are equal because "same colors are equal" and "different colors are supplementary."




After the notes, I had students work on the following Parallelograms Maze (which they LOVED). Directions: Every student will start at problem A and solve the problem. When they solve the problem, they will take the solution and plug it into B's empty box. They will repeat this process until they are finished with all of the problems. I walk around and check students work because if they mess up on a problem, it will make their whole worksheet incorrect. By creating this worksheet, students definitely asked more questions than usual just to make sure that they are not doing a lot of work to get the whole paper wrong. I did have students write down which property they used for every problem.


Overall it was a great day! I love it when students have questions and when they use important geometry vocabulary in their conversations :) Tomorrow we have a Parallelograms Quiz and I'm very excited to see how they do. 

UPDATE TO POST: I have started making YouTube Videos with Google Form Assessments in the description if you would like to use!




Here are the resources I used today:
1) Flipbook: CLICK HERE
2) Parallelograms Maze: CLICK HERE

24 comments

  1. Thanks for sharing your flipbook. I think it is going to work great with my students.

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  2. This flipbook looks awesome. Thank you for sharing your resource!

    Raven Hayes

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  3. Is there a complete flip book anywhere?

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    1. The complete flip-book is posted in post above.

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    2. Am I missing the completed flipbook. I don't see the completed square examples.

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  4. Thank you so much for sharing your experience in teaching this and your resources! Much appreciated and super engaging!!

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  5. Awesome stuff! I am going to use the maze as an entry task tomorrow for my Geom classes.
    I really appreciate all you do- feel like I am stealing from you every time I use your resources...
    -snapdragon

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  6. This flip book is AMAZING!
    Thanks for sharing(:

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. Do you have a key for the maze, just as a quick reference?

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    1. I second the need for a answer key, or at least THE answer. Thanks!

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  9. Could there be an option for the last problem to be "solve for x"? They don't really need "m" or to do any work in order to answer the last question, since <D and <B are equal by definition. I thought about asking for <C, but that doesn't need "m" either. Solving for x seems to be the most use of algebra and properties. Thanks! Great activity!

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    1. m means the measure of. So in the last question they are asking for the measure of angle B, given the measure of angle A and the measure of angle D are given. They are solving for B not m

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    2. yes, I know what "m" for the angles measure. The "m" is the answer 1/2 to the previous problem. It is intended to go into the box. This problem doesn't require any solving. If they know Angle B, they know Angle D. No algebra or equation required...

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  10. Thank you for sharing this. It should be interactive and will surely engage my scholars. I will use this as an intro to this unit. Sincere appreciation!!

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  11. This is great!

    Is there an answer key to this somewhere?

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  12. How did you get it to fit in the interactive notebook?

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  13. Your activities are great! Do you have a key available?

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  14. Just wondering if I solved "J" incorrectly. I get a negative answer. What should the answer to "J" be that then is moved to "K"?

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  15. I think I figured out "J", but it does not make sense in "K". What should "K" equal?

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  16. I got it! Never mind.

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